Saint Damien, born Joseph de Veuster in Tremolo, Belgium, in 1840, volunteered to minister to Hansen's disease patients who had been sent to Kalaupapa. He worked in the settlement for 16 years, baptizing hundreds, celebrating Masses, building coffins and digging graves. He sat by the bedsides of the sickest, hearing their confessions, washing their bodies, bandaging their wounds. He was diagnosed with Hansen's disease in 1884 and died five years later, at age 49. People called for his elevation to sainthood shortly after his death. His official cause was introduced in 1955.

DECLARATION OF SAINTHOOD

In honor of the Blessed Trinity, for the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the growth of Christian life, with the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and our own, after lengthy reflection, having assiduously invoked God's assistance and taken into account the opinion of many brothers of ours in the episcopate, we declare and define Damien de Veuster to be a saint, and we enroll him in the catalogue of the saints, and we establish that in the whole Church he should be devoutly honored among the saints. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Chant by Pope Benedict XVI