By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Mother Marianne Cope is going back home. As required for her anticipated beatification, the body of the revered Sister of St. Francis will be exhumed early next year from its resting place in Kalaupapa, Molokai, and be transported to a permanent shrine at the Franciscan motherhouse she left 122 years ago in Syracuse, N.Y.

“Respectful of all that Mother Marianne means to the people of Hawaii,” said a statement by the leadership team of the Franciscan Sisters, “we have made the decision to bring Mother Marianne’s remains to Syracuse, where she will be honored as a daughter of the church of Hawaii and of Syracuse.”

Mother Marianne and six Franciscan Sisters came to Hawaii on Nov. 8, 1883, in response to a plea for the Hawaiian government to care for victims of leprosy in Honolulu.

After working in Honolulu and on Maui, she arrived at Kalaupapa in 1888, a few months before the death of Blessed Damien, and succeeded the missionary priest as the settlement’s guiding force. She died on Aug. 9, 1918, and is buried in Kalaupapa.

There is an expectation by her community that she will be beatified within the next few years.

According to the director of her canonization cause, Franciscan Sister Mary Laurence Hanley, beatification requires a shrine “which has the best and adequate accessibility both in terms of location and expense, as well as safety, security and care for her remains for many years into the future.”

The decision to move the remains to Syracuse “was not made lightly,” said Franciscan Sister Marion Kikukawa, vice-postulator for Mother Marianne’s cause. It came after much prayer and dialogue with the residents of Kalaupapa and within the Franciscan community, she said.

Sister Marion said that Mother Marianne had initially intended to return to Syracuse after establishing the Hawaii mission. She had been the superior of her order in Syracuse when she left, and had been the major figure in establishing the first hospitals there.

However, she “came to love the people and saw the need for our sisters here,” Sister Marion said.

Mother Marianne remained in Hawaii at great personal sacrifice convinced it was God’s will, she said.

“We believe this is the time for her to come home,” Sister Marion told the Hawaii Catholic Herald last week.

“We recognize that there is going to be sadness,” she said. “Saying goodbye is always difficult.”

She said the sisters will plan “leave-taking ceremonies” on Molokai and on Oahu.

Sister Marion and general minister of the Syracuse Franciscans, Sister Grace Anne Dillenschneider, visited Kalaupapa on Oct. 11 to speak with residents, patients and national park service and state workers regarding the exhumation decision. It was the second meeting between Franciscan officials and the people of Kalaupapa.

Sister Marion said that the Kalaupapa residents recognize that the decision “is one we have to make.”

“Her spirit, her legacy, the work of all our sisters over the years will always be a part of the Kalaupapa story,” she said.

Sister Marion is confident that the attention brought to Mother Marianne because of her beatification will enable her story and that of Kalaupapa to be retold “in new places” and to “other people.”

Progress in the cause

Pope John Paul II affirmed Mother Marianne’s “heroic virtue” on April 19 by declaring her “venerable,” the last major step before beatification.

On April 27, at the request of then Bishop of Honolulu Francis X. DiLorenzo, the head of the Congregation for Causes of Saints, Cardinal Sariava Martins, authorized the exhumation of Mother Marianne’s remains for identification — a requirement for beatification.

The Bishop of Syracuse James M. Moynihan told Catholic News Service, Oct. 7, during a recent trip to the Vatican that “the theological and historical commissions” of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes “unanimously approved” her for beatification.

He also said, “I’ve heard the medical commission has finalized” its investigation into the cure offered as a miracle attributed to her intercession.

The Syracuse bishop said he hoped the proclamations clearing the way for her beatification would be issued within the next six months.

The exhumation is tentatively planned for Jan. 24, the day after Mother Marianne’s 167th birthday, which falls on a Sunday.

The fact that Kalaupapa is part of the National Park System was among the considerations in the decision to move Mother Marianne’s remains. While the Franciscan Sisters are legally in charge of Mother Marianne’s remains, they do not own the land in which they rest.

According to Sister Marion, there is a considerable amount of government paper work involved in exhuming a body from federal property and transporting it across the country.

However, she said, “the National Park Service and the Department of Health have been extremely cooperative and gracious.”

Mother Marianne’s present gravesite is marked with a nearly life sized monument depicting the crucified Christ reaching down to greet St. Francis of Assisi. More than 80 years old, it was erected in 1920, two years after Mother Marianne’s death, as a gift from the patients.

Sister Marion said that the Franciscan community wants to avoid damaging the monument during the exhumation, and intends to “take the proper steps” to preserve it in its present place.

‘We’re not going to be here’

She said that the Franciscans had discussed moving Mother Marianne’s remains “in the late 50s, early 60s,” but decided against it in deference to Kalaupapa residents still alive at the time who knew her and who maintained her grave.

There is no one alive today who knew her, Sister Marion said.

Still the decision has caused some sadness among present members of the Kalaupapa community.

“We love Mother Marianne,” said Kuulei Bell, a Kalaupapa resident for 54 years.

Nevertheless, she understands why the move is necessary.

“This [Kalaupapa] is her home, too,” she told the Hawaii Catholic Herald in an Oct. 15 phone conversation.

“But eventually, we are not going to be here,” she said, in reference to herself and her 31 fellow settlement residents, most of whom are elderly.

Bell said she used to hear stories of Mother Marianne at Kalaupapa from her “hanai” (adoptive) mother, Mary Sing, who had been one of the children under the Franciscan Sister’s care.

“They would sing for her ‘O Makalapua,’ a favorite song of hers,” Bell said. “My mother said she was a nice lady.”

Bell said that the Kalaupapa residents are pleased to know that the Franciscan Sisters plan to create a special place of honor for Mother Marianne at the Syracuse motherhouse.

“They have reassured us that it is going to be okay. She will be in a nice place, in good hands,” she said.

“Although the loss is going to be great for us, I have this wonderful feeling that they are doing the right thing,” she said.

The pastor of Kalaupapa’s St. Francis Church, Sacred Hearts Father Joseph Hendriks, said that his parishioners, the patients and workers of Kalaupapa, “expected” the decision.

They were initially unhappy with it, he said, but “there is no resistance any more.”

Father Hendriks said, however, that he is happy that more attention is now being given to Mother Marianne.

The pastor has been reading Mother Marianne’s biography and said that he is “very touched by her story.”

“She accepted many crosses and the way of Christ’s with a good and cheerful spirit,” he said. “It is almost unbelievable what she had to go through” in her care for the Hansen’s disease patients.

It is “so important” that her story become more known, Father Hendriks said.