St. Damien of Molokai (1840–1889) was a Belgian priest who volunteered in 1873 to serve the people with leprosy who had been exiled by the Kingdom of Hawaii to the isolated Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Molokai, lived among them for sixteen years as their priest, builder, doctor and friend, caught the disease himself, and died there. He became a symbol around the world of love for the outcast, and he is the patron of people with leprosy (Hansen’s disease) and of all who are rejected because of illness. His feast day is May 10. Below are his story, Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous defense of him, and prayers to St. Damien.
A short prayer to St. Damien, written for this page:
St. Damien, you went where no one else would go and became one with the outcast.
Pray for all who are sick, isolated or rejected,
and give me the courage to draw near to those whom others avoid. Amen.
Who was St. Damien?
Jozef De Veuster was born on January 3, 1840, in Tremelo, Belgium, the son of farmers. He joined the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, taking the name Damien. When his brother, a priest of the same order, fell ill before he could leave for the mission in Hawaii, Damien asked to go in his place. He arrived in Honolulu in 1864 and was ordained a priest there.
At that time leprosy was spreading in Hawaii, and the government sent everyone who had it to Kalaupapa, a peninsula on the north shore of Molokai cut off by high cliffs. The settlement had no priest, little law and little hope. In 1873 Damien volunteered to go. He built houses, churches, a hospital, an orphanage and a water supply, dressed wounds, taught the faith, made coffins and dug graves with his own hands. In 1884 he discovered that he too had leprosy, and he began a homily with the words “we lepers.” He kept working until his strength gave out, helped in his last years by St. Marianne Cope and her sisters, and died on April 15, 1889.
Pope St. John Paul II beatified him in 1995, and Pope Benedict XVI canonized him in 2009. A statue of St. Damien represents the State of Hawaii in the U.S. Capitol.
“Damien was coarse”
After Damien’s death, a Protestant minister in Honolulu, the Rev. Charles Hyde, wrote a letter dismissing him as a coarse, dirty man. The Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson, who had visited Molokai in 1889 and met the people Damien had served, answered with an open letter that made Damien famous. Part of his reply:
Damien was coarse.
It is very possible. You make us sorry for the lepers, who had only a coarse old peasant for their friend and father. But you, who were so refined, why were you not there, to cheer them with the lights of culture? Or may I remind you that we have some reason to doubt if John the Baptist were genteel; and in the case of Peter, on whose career you doubtless dwell approvingly in the pulpit, no doubt at all he was a “coarse, headstrong” fisherman! Yet even in our Protestant Bibles Peter is called Saint.
Damien was dirty.
He was. Think of the poor lepers annoyed with this dirty comrade! But the clean Dr. Hyde was at his food in a fine house.
Damien was headstrong.
I believe you are right again; and I thank God for his strong head and heart.
Damien was bigoted.
I am not fond of bigots myself, because they are not fond of me. But what is meant by bigotry, that we should regard it as a blemish in a priest? Damien believed his own religion with the simplicity of a peasant or a child; as I would I could suppose that you do. For this, I wonder at him some way off; and had that been his only character, should have avoided him in life. But the point of interest in Damien, which has caused him to be so much talked about and made him at last the subject of your pen and mine, was that, in him, his bigotry, his intense and narrow faith, wrought potently for good, and strengthened him to be one of the world’s heroes and exemplars.
What is St. Damien the patron saint of?
- People with leprosy (Hansen’s disease)
- The outcast and all who are rejected because of illness
- People living with HIV/AIDS, in popular devotion
- Hawaii
Prayers to St. Damien
Written for this page.
For the sick and isolated
St. Damien, you brought Christ to people forgotten by the world.
Pray for the sick who are alone, for patients in quarantine and in long-term care,
and for those who suffer from diseases that frighten others. Amen.
For caregivers
St. Damien, you washed wounds and built homes for the sick.
Pray for doctors, nurses and caregivers who serve those no one else wants to touch. Amen.
Feast day
The optional memorial of St. Damien de Veuster, priest, is May 10 in the United States, the anniversary of his arrival at Kalaupapa in 1873. He died on April 15, 1889.
Frequently asked questions
Did St. Damien die of leprosy?
Yes. He contracted leprosy while serving at Kalaupapa and died of it on April 15, 1889, at forty-nine.
Why is St. Damien the patron of outcasts?
Because he chose to live among the people with leprosy whom society had exiled, and became one of them.
When is St. Damien’s feast day?
May 10 in the United States.
More saints
- St. Peter Chanel
- St. Marianne Cope
- Patron saints of healing
- Prayer for the sick
- St. Peter Claver
- Works of mercy
- Saint of the day
Texts and sources
- Robert Louis Stevenson, Father Damien: An Open Letter to the Reverend Dr. Hyde of Honolulu (1890), public domain (Project Gutenberg). One typographical slip in the online text (“your” for “you”) is corrected.