Blessed Damien de Veuster is to be named a Saint

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Blessed Damien de Veuster will be canonized on October 11th as a Saint. A priest in the order of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, he went to Hawaii and then on to the remote Kalaupapa peninsula of Molokai island where he ministered to people suffering from leprosy and later died from the illness.

[rug]

1. My fellow lepers . . . .

http://www.missionsla.org/subpages/learn/archivesaint/aprilsaint.html

I remember vividly hearing his story in grade school.

[KatyMan]

2. My middle name is Damien

because of him. Nice that he's being canonized now, I've been intersted in his story my whole life, for obvious reasons.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. It's about time! I kept waiting for JP II to get

around to canonizing Fr. Damien. Maybe he just hadn't had a second miracle -- anybody know?

[IndianaGreen]

4. Don't laugh, but I first learned of Father Damien through a comic book

The comic book covered Father Damien's remarkable life, even the incident by which he may have contracted leprosy.

A great humanitarian, on the same level as my childhood hero Albert Schweitzer.