Father Damien (Saint Damien of Molokai)

Jozef De Veuster was born in Tremelo, Belgium. Following in the footsteps of his older brother, he entered the novitiate of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in Leuven, adopting the religious name Damien. In 1864, when his brother fell ill with typhus and was unable to travel, Damien volunteered to take his place on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands, being ordained a priest at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu.

At the time, Hawaii was gripped by a catastrophic epidemic of Hansen's disease (leprosy). Fearing contagion, King Kamehameha V passed the Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy in 1865, forcibly banishing thousands of leprosy sufferers to the isolated, windswept Kalaupapa Peninsula on the island of Molokai, sealed off by towering 2,000-foot sea cliffs. In May 1873, aware that entry into the settlement was a virtual death sentence, Father Damien volunteered to go to Molokai permanently.

Arriving at the colony, Damien found 816 patients living in lawless squalor, abandoned in damp grass huts without medical care or sanitation. Rolling up his cassock sleeves, Damien dressed ulcers, amputated gangrenous limbs, built water pipes from mountain springs, constructed wooden cottages, painted coffins, and dug more than 1,600 graves with his own hands. In 1884, dipping his feet in boiling water without feeling pain, Damien realized he had contracted leprosy. He famously began his next sermon with the words: 'We lepers...' continuing his pastoral care until his death at age forty-nine.