Hawai'i Catholics rejoiced yesterday at news that the pope had cleared the way for Father Damien's sainthood and began planning for the big event.

"There's excitement, but there's, 'Oh, what do we have to do next?'" said the Rev. Ed Popish, who served for years as a pastor in Kalaupapa, Moloka'i, where Damien volunteered to work with patients afflicted with Hansen's disease, then called leprosy. Damien contracted the disease himself and died in 1889 at age 49.

The Vatican reported yesterday that Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree accepting that the miraculous cure of Audrey Toguchi of 'Aiea from terminal cancer was attributable to her prayers to Damien for his intervention with God.

The pope has yet to set a date for the canonization ceremony, which will take place in Rome.

"Oh, wow!" said The Rev. Christopher Keahi, when told of the pope's approval.

However, when the enormity of the situation hit him, Keahi took a deep breath and said: "I'm so glad it's not going to be this year. We're not totally prepared, and there's so much to do."

The pope likely will announce the date of Damien's canonization at a gathering of church leaders that may be held in February. Yesterday's papal decree also included 13 other people on the road to sainthood.

Keahi's Sacred Hearts order had pushed hard for Damien's canonization. And Keahi praised Bishop Larry Silva's advocacy of the sainthood causes of Damien and Mother Marianne Cope, a nun with the Sisters of St. Francis who also volunteered to work with leprosy patients at Kalaupapa.

"He's been really pushing hard," Keahi said. "I'm so happy for him."

Damien was beatified in 1995 and Cope in 2005. That status is one level below sainthood in the Catholic church. People with that designation are called blessed, as in Blessed Damien and Blessed Marianne.

Silva, head of the Diocese of Honolulu, which covers all of the state, said sainthood will assure the people of Kalaupapa — "patients who of course have great love for Damien and Mother Marianne" — that their part in history will not be lost.

"The canonization guarantees it will be be told for centuries," Silva said, adding that Damien and Cope "will be the primary storytellers."

MORE TOURISTS POSSIBLE

Good news like this lightens the burdens of Kalaupapa patients, and not just those who are Roman Catholic, said Father Felix Vandebroek, who is currently stationed on the Kalaupapa Peninsula and serves the local congregations, including Dam-ien's parish.

"They have great respect for Father Damien," he said.

While Vandebroek said he expected the canonization will increase traffic to his side of the island, it's not really geared for a lot of tourism and lacks amenities like rental cars or even a hotel.

"It might be possible we get more individual visits," Vandebroek said, "but I don't see it for the moment. You never know. ... The community sometime ago made it a local law that there are no more than 100 tourists on one particular day."

Kalaupapa resident Meli T. Watanuki remembers when there were hundreds of patients at the hospital in Kalaupapa. Now there are 25.

"I came to Kalaupapa in 1969," she said. "I've seen a lot. When I came here, there was plenty patients."

She recalled big celebrations, like Father Damien's feast day, filled with bustle and laughter.

"Now there's not that many," she said.

While they won't be putting banners all over the island, Vandebroek joked, "we will prepare ourselves for that special day" when Damien is canonized.

"We'll do our best to have the whole community involved."

State Sen. J. Kalani English, whose district includes Moloka'i, said, "Kalaupapa has always represented a place where many found hope, despite the burden of their condition.

"To think that a saint walked among the humble residents of Kalaupapa and worked to ease their burdens is deeply moving, and a reminder that we can never know who among us will have the power to change the world," English said in a written statement.

POPE'S ACTION EXPECTED

Popish, who was at the Sacred Hearts general house in Rome when he heard the news, said he wasn't surprised that Benedict approved the decrees.

"Once the cardinals sign off, his approval is kind of pro forma. It would have been a bigger surprise if he'd said no."

When she was a girl, Irene Letoto, the retired curator of the Damien Museum, said she sang a Mass of the Angels for Damien and wrote essays every Damien Day.

"This was how he was celebrated in those days," she said.

Letoto has watched as the ebbs and flows of time had their way with Damien's legacy. The Catholic church can move slowly, she said, and decades passed with little progress on his road to sainthood.

"Then about 20 years ago, his cause was back on the burner," she said. "You let it go for a while, then with the beatification, it all came back all of a sudden."