VATICAN CITY, July 3, 2008
Pope Approves Miracle For Hawaiian Priest
19th Century Belgian Priest Who Ministered To Lepers In Hawaii One Step Closer To Sainthood
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Interactive Pope Benedict XVI More about the German-born pontiff, leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
Benedict declared that a Honolulu woman's recovery in 1999 from terminal lung cancer was the miracle needed for canonization of the Rev. Damien de Veuster. The miracle was attributed to the intercession of the late priest, to whom the woman, Audrey Toguchi, had prayed.
The approval means that Father Damien, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995, will be canonized at a date still to be set.
The Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints had said Toguchi's recovery defied medical explanation, and on Thursday the pope told the sainthood office's leader, Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins, that he agreed, the Vatican said.
"It's such an exciting time in our lives that one of our men, one of us here in Hawaii, has attained the highest rank of sanctity and will soon be declared a saint in the church," said the Rev. Christopher Keahi, head of the Sacred Hearts order of Hawaii.
Born Joseph de Veuster in 1840, Damien went to Hawaii in 1864 and joined other missionaries of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Nine years later he began ministering to leprosy patients on the remote Kalaupapa peninsula of Molokai island, where some 8,000 people had been banished amid an epidemic in Hawaii in the 1850s.
The priest eventually contracted the disease, also known as Hansen's disease, and died in 1889 at 49.
Honolulu Bishop Larry Silva said canonization is important, "not simply as a recognition of the saintly heroism of Father Damien, but so that, following his example, we may all be renewed in holiness and in our dedication to those brothers and sisters who are most in need."
The Vatican's saint-making procedures require that a miracle attributed to the candidate's intercession be confirmed in order to be beatified. Damien was beatified after the Vatican declared that the 1987 recovery of a Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary nun was a miracle. The nun recovered from an illness after praying to Damien.
After beatification, a second miracle is needed for sainthood.
A date for canonization was not expected to be set until February. Damien's body was exhumed from his Molokai grave in 1936 and his remains sent back to Belgium for reburial. In 1995, a relic of his right hand was given back to the Hawaii diocese and returned to the Molokai grave.
The decree for Father Damien was one of 13 approved by the pope for people in various stages of the sainthood process.
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- DON''T YOU SEE HOW EVIL PEOPLE ARE EVEN AFTER THEY BELIEVE IN GOD. JUST IMAGINE IF THEY DIDN''T BELIEVE IN ANYTHING, HOW F**KED UP THIS WORLD BE.
- Reply to this comment
- FOX NEWS discovered the presence of a massive spy ring inside the United States run by the government of Israel. This seems a harsh gratitude from a nation which obtains 10% of its annual budget from the American taxpayer, $3+ billion a year. Over the years, American taxpayers have been required to send Israel more than four times what the US spent to go to the moon.
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- Am I the only one who sees the irony?
Posted by smurfcrusher at 10:01 AM : Jul 04, 2008
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as ironic as "bono eradicating poverty in africa" - Reply to this comment
- "Pope approves miracle"...
Am I the only one who sees the irony? - Reply to this comment
- How many raped alter boys does this honor absolve?
- Reply to this comment
Posted by u243379 at 08:14 PM
With your words of wisdom you sound like a saint.
You wouldn''t happen to have a case of leprosy
would you?
Or a case of beer?- Reply to this comment
- "Approves Miracle" lol .... sheeesh!
- Reply to this comment
- There''s a short passage in James Michener''s book ''Hawaii'' that details a young Hawaiian womans journey to Kalaupapa after a leprosy diagnosis. Set adrift by ''polite'' society, without hope, sanity, caring, civilization. Picture true outcasts of society fighting like dogs for a bit of meat and status on Molokai''s windswept, isolated coast, most in various states of decay.
Damien came to this place and delivered a message: society''s ''outcasts'' were only outcasts if they accepted it. That created so much homegrown culture that when ''civilized'' people finally reached back out to mainstream these people back into society, many preferred to stay and die in Kalaupapa.
I find it strangely appropriate that ''polite'' Catholic society has always been searching, these many years, for some ''reason'' to beatify Father Damien.
Damien performed his miracle. And like all ''real'' miracles, it required an unyielding aptitude for ''goodness'', not smoke n mirrors n Catholic bishops counting the angels on the heads of pins. - Reply to this comment
- I wonder what the "naysayers" beleive. I''m willing to bet Your religion would seem just as silly and pathetic to a Catholic. Get a life Peolple! If all You can do is sit on a website and ridicule, then I take that back, I wouldn''t laugh @ Your religion, probably just Your lack of a Social Life :oP
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GIVES A PERSON SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT????
Posted by hbevis at 07:00 PM
Yeah, I think about:
Why does God kill people?
Must be some kind of a miracle
to kill so many and not be in jail.
I will give Benedict points for
doing this in Hawaii and not some
reeetard desert country.
Next time he can pick a "miracle worker"
from the French Riviera? or maybe Tahiti?
Gotta go get a "miracle" cure for this
hunger pain I''ve developed.
- Reply to this comment
- A real miracle would be when the Vatican gives back all that it has stolen.
- Reply to this comment
- How laughably pathetic religious people are - the Catholics in particular, it would seem.
They claim to be monotheistic, and yet they pray directly to a whole pantheon of other characters as well. And virtually anything that happens is seen as a possible "miracle" in their eyes.
How childishly superstitious and silly it all sounds to a truly rational person. It''''s hard not to laugh outright at such nonsense.
Posted by IT_Oldtimer at 05:03 PM : Jul 03, 2008
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The power of prayer and miracles must never be underestimated, dismissed or trivialized. Prayer works and miracles do happen. My thanks and humble gratitude for prayers answered to St. Theresa, St. Jude, Baby Jesus, Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, St. Christopher, my Guardian Angel and all of the Saints and Angels in Heaven whose names I can''''t number or recall. God bless everyone.
Posted by Credibility2 at 04:46 PM : Jul 03, 2008
RE: THESE TWO POST. ONE FOR AND ONE AGAINST. ALL OF THE NAY SLAYERS CAN NOT BELIEVE IF THAT IS THE WAY YOU WANT TO BE, BUT I HAVE A VERY GOOD FEELING THAT YOU ARE GOING TO GET A SURPRISE WHEN YOU PEOPLE DIE.
THERE IS AN OLD SAYING:
IF I BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A GOD WITH ALL MY HEART. AND WHEN I DIE AND THERE IS NOT GOD, I WILL NOT HAVE LOST ANYTHING BY BELIEVING.
BUT IF I DON''T BELIEVE THERE IS A GOD AND WHEN I DIE THERE IS A GOD. THEN I AM IN BIG TROUBLE.
GIVES A PERSON SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT???? - Reply to this comment
- IT_Oldtimer - what''s the matter, did we not get some of our prayers answered all the way? Are we a once upon a time embittered Protestant? A truly rational person also respects others and what they believe in without finding fault, mocking and ridiculing. Believing is not wrong, nor anything to be ashamed of. My post done with honesty, while your''s was done spitefully and embittered. You''re also making many irrational suppositions for someone professing to be truly rational. What a brave mature thing it is to mock, belittle and ridicule others just because you''re incapable of appreciating or understanding.
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- Pretty gruesome to carry pieces of a dead man''s hand around the world.
What a bunch of freaks. - Reply to this comment
- What a load of bull.
Since the advent of camcorders you''ll notice there are no ''traditional'' miracles like the sun moving closer to the Earth, or water turning to wine... well, maybe with the addition of grapes and magic powder, in a cool place for a few weeks... ;)
Seriously, the vatican must think the world is populated with chumps if they expect us to buy this bunk. - Reply to this comment
- How laughably pathetic religious people are - the Catholics in particular, it would seem.
They claim to be monotheistic, and yet they pray directly to a whole pantheon of other characters as well. And virtually anything that happens is seen as a possible "miracle" in their eyes.
How childishly superstitious and silly it all sounds to a truly rational person. It''s hard not to laugh outright at such nonsense. - Reply to this comment
- The power of prayer and miracles must never be underestimated, dismissed or trivialized. Prayer works and miracles do happen. My thanks and humble gratitude for prayers answered to St. Theresa, St. Jude, Baby Jesus, Blessed Mother, St. Joseph, St. Christopher, my Guardian Angel and all of the Saints and Angels in Heaven whose names I can''t number or recall. God bless everyone.
- Reply to this comment
Can he bless the guy that
brought the leprosy to the island?- Reply to this comment
- Not sure, may have to read it again.
First run thru seemed like they were
talking adult thinking people there.
But as I say I''ll read it again.
Better yet, my eyes you know, I''ll have
someone read it to me to be sure. - Reply to this comment
Best-selling author Mitch Albom on his first nonfiction work since "Tuesdays with Morrie."
