A group visiting Kalaupapa hopes to pave the way for future pilgrimages to the Hawaiian place that produced saints

By Anna Weaver

The story of Blessed Damien, Blessed Marianne, and the thousands of Hansen’s disease patients exiled to Kalaupapa over the course of a century of Hawaiian history has been told and retold in countless articles, dozens of books and numerous films. But it isn’t until one actually walks on that isolated peninsula jutting into the blue Pacific on Molokai’s northern shore that a true sense of the history and sacredness of the place is felt.

That is why the Father Damien and Mother Marianne Commission of the Diocese of Honolulu spent a few days visiting that holy ground. The group, created last January by Bishop Larry Silva to promote devotion to Father Damien de Veuster and Mother Marianne Cope, engaged in a “prototype pilgrimage,” Nov. 3-5, to prepare for what they hope will be regular pilgrimages in the future for the general faithful.

The two and a half day trek included time on “Topside” Molokai — the rest of the island, which Blessed Damien also served.

“[Visitors] will never be able to understand and feel what [the patients] felt, but it is coming a little closer to understanding what they went through,” said Sister of St. Francis Alicia Damien Lau, who was a primary organizer of the commission’s pilgrimage.

Day one, Friday, Nov. 3

The pilgrimage group of 10 commission members, eight members from the St. John Vianney choir in Kailua, and a few others gathered at the Molokai Shuttle’s little terminal off Lagoon Drive in Honolulu shortly after 7 a.m.

Pilgrimage Attendees Commissioners Father Joseph Grimaldi Father Patrick McCormick Father Christopher Keahi, SSCC Patrick Boland Barbara Okamoto Sister Davilyn Ah Chick, OSF Sister William Marie Eleniki, OSF Sister Alicia Damien Lau, OSF Sister Helene Wood, SSCC Sister Regina Mary Jenkins, SSCC Molokai Catholic Community Rose Brito Ilona Honig Father Jose Macoy “Beau” Cummins Mahoe III Greta Martinez Ida Reyes Leoda Shizuma Maria Sullivan Henry Tancayo Pat Tancayo St. John Vianney Choir Margaret Liu Pam Metzger Piolani Motta Margaret Peters Alice Secor Mary Souza Twila Smith Others Sister Agnelle Ching, OSF Calvin Liu

Bishop Larry Silva was there. He had strongly supported the pilgrimage and was scheduled to go, but an ear infection which prevented him from flying forced him to cancel at the last minute. He nevertheless led a short prayer in the waiting room before watching the group board three 10-seater Cessna planes for the short hop to the Friendly Isle.

The 20-minute flight across the Kaiwi Channel to Hoolehua Airport, Topside, was smooth and quiet. Upon landing, members of the Molokai Catholic Community greeted the pilgrims with smiles, hugs and kukui nut leis. Everyone then got on a yellow school bus to begin the pilgrimage.

The group chattered excitedly as the bus drove through Kualapuu and Kaunakakai. In Kaunakakai the Oahu riders exclaimed at the price of gas — $3.49 per gallon — and got a glimpse of St. Sophia Church, the island’s main Catholic church.

The first stop at the Kalaupapa Lookout in Palaau State Park provided a misty first view of the Kalaupapa peninsula thousands of feet below. The group then got back on the bus for a drive across the width of the slender island to St. Joseph Church in Kamalo on the south shore while munching on Molokai’s famed hot Kanemitsu bread and sweet potato slices.

“A lot of people in the commission have never been even to Topside, to the two churches there,” said Sister Alicia Damien, who works on Oahu for the Ito Group of Healthcare Companies. “So we’re trying to experience that and walk the walk that Damien did.”

The “two churches there” are tiny St. Joseph, built by Father Damien in 1876, and Our Lady of Seven Sorrows a few more miles down the coast in Kaluaaha, which Damien built in 1874.

At St. Joseph, the church overflowed with the visitors as their Molokai hosts shared their memories of the church’s history. At the next stop, Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, commission member Father Patrick McCormick presided at the pilgrimage’s first Mass.

“The Lord takes our hand and walks with us these three days,” said Father McCormick, a commander in the U.S. Navy Chaplain Corps, in his homily. “He will begin to reveal to each of us a little bit more. Not about the facts. Those we can read in books and share with one another. He will tell us a little bit more the secret of [Damien’s and Marianne’s] hearts.”

“As a little boy, I knew Father Damien was a giant,” Father McCormick said. “Normal people didn’t do what he did. It’s one thing to say, ‘I’ll go.’ It’s another thing to stay there for 15 years or 40 years. It’s tough.”

Mass was followed by a quick lunch, after which the pilgrims zoomed back to Hoolehua Airport for the hop down to Kalaupapa.

One sentiment that would be repeated many times throughout the weekend was that Kalaupapa is a sacred place. That sense was felt by all the pilgrims once they arrived on the peninsula, where 33 Hansen’s disease patients still live along with state park workers and others.

“This is holy ground. This is really holy ground and you can feel it,” said Sister Alicia Damien. “This is a living graveyard.”

Sister Helene Wood, head of the Sacred Hearts Sisters in Hawaii and vice-postulator for the canonization cause of Blessed Damien, described any time spent at Kalaupapa as “privileged.”

“Your concerns melt away and you really become imbued with the sense of the holiness of the place,” she said.

“I think what we want people to realize is that the spirit of Blessed Marianne and Blessed Damien remain here,” she said.

After settling in at their various living quarters, the pilgrims had a chance to explore a bit before gathering for dinner in the parish hall of Kalaupapa’s parish church, St. Francis. A striking purple, pink, and orange sunset made for stunning evening entertainment and evening prayers were said in St. Francis Church before everyone retired for the night.

Day two: Saturday, Nov. 4

The next morning, the pilgrimage group boarded several vans for the 15-minute drive down the dirt road to Kalawao, the site of the original leprosy settlement on the opposite side of the peninsula. A postcard view of the black sand landing beach, ocean cliffs, and water could be seen near an open-air pavilion where Sacred Hearts provincial Father Christopher Keahi led a discussion of the history of Damien and Kalaupapa.

The group also discussed how to get accurate historical information to visitors to Kalaupapa and the plans for a future memorial for all the Hansen’s disease patients sent to Molokai.

Commission member Patrick Boland read a particularly poignant letter Father Damien wrote home to Europe, which read, in part, “Thus at nighttime I am the sole keeper of this garden of the dead where my spiritual children lie at rest. My greatest pleasure is to go there to say my beads and meditate on that unending happiness which so many of them are already enjoying.”

Pilgrims then walked in that very cemetery, where Blessed Damien remains were buried in 1889 and later exhumed in 1936 to be sent to his home country of Belgium. Damien’s gravesite, which now holds the relic remains of his right hand, lies a few feet from “Damien’s Church,” St. Philomena’s, which the priest himself had expanded in 1873.

Father Keahi presided at a 10:15 a.m. Mass at the church attended by the pilgrims and area residents.

Everyone enjoyed a picnic at the pavilion afterward. The pilgrims then drove up to the lookout at Kauhako Crater, the peninsula’s central and single promontory, where a terrific view of Kalaupapa, the Kalaupapa lighthouse, and the 800-feet deep crater lake could be seen.

Standing across from the large white cross put up by the Lion’s Club in the 1950s, the group listened to Boland explain the area’s history.

The vista gave Sister Alicia Damien a feeling of past foreboding.

“Being up on the crater, every time I go up there, just looking at the mountains, and the height of the mountains, and then looking at the peninsula, and knowing that there’s really no escape,” she said. “You can just feel probably the seclusion that the patients felt when they first were sent here.”

That afternoon, the group was free to do what they wanted. Some went swimming and a few visited the grave of beloved patient Olivia Breitha who died on Sept. 29 at age 90. Some napped, others explored more of Kalaupapa, and a few made a trip to the friendly neighborhood bar run by resident Gloria Marks.

Gloria’s husband, Richard Marks, has been a Kalaupapa resident since he was found to have Hansen’s disease in 1956. He has run Damien Tours, the community’s primary visitors’ guide through Kalaupapa, since 1966.

“Kalaupapa should be kept open as much as possible, with the original history, not some outsider coming in and rewriting it,” said Marks.

His good friend, Pat Boland, agreed.

“It’s a matter of justice,” he said, “because these people were forcibly taken from their families and isolated and sent here. Now if they want to stay, it’s not a matter of charity to maintain the place, it’s a matter of justice.”

“People need to know the story not only of Damien and Marianne and the others that came to help, but they need to know the story of the patients,” said Boland, who is retired from the State Health Planning and Development Agency. “Primarily it’s their story. It’s their legacy. Eight thousand people have been sent here, mostly forgotten.”

After dinner, the group listened to a presentation by Franciscan Sister Davilyn Ah Chick on Mother Marianne Cope and watched a slideshow from the 2005 exhumation of Marianne’s body and the ceremonies that followed.

For many, the highlight of Saturday evening was a procession by flashlight to Blessed Marianne’s grave where vespers were held. Afterward, members of the St. John Vianney choir, who visit Kalaupapa every year, played music and sang and the pilgrimage group had a chance to chat with Kalaupapa residents in the parish hall.

Day three, Sunday, Nov. 5

Several residents of Kalaupapa joined the pilgrims for 9 a.m. Mass in St. Francis Church.

In his homily, Father Joseph Grimaldi pointed out that “the saints of Kalaupapa” are not only Blessed Damien and Blessed Marianne but all the patients sent here. He said they can strengthen people to go out in the world and do good.

After lunch, the visitors packed up to leave. By around 2 p.m. they were heading back to Oahu and to Topside.

“We came on a fact-finding mission, and yet it became a truly spiritual journey,” said Father Grimaldi. “I needed the spiritual experience more than I ever expected.”

Sister Alicia Damien said that the commission will now evaluate the weekend and work out logistics for future pilgrimages. She thinks that a reasonable group size might be eight to 10 people at one time.

For future pilgrimages, one improvement she would consider would be more time spent at Kalawao for personal reflection.

Commission member Barbara Okamoto, vice president of Customer Relationship Management for the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, summed up the experience in an e-mail message a few days later. “It’s a cruel paradox — to be exiled to one of the most breathtakingly beautiful spots on earth,” she wrote.

“It was a privilege to walk in the presence God and of those past and present,” Okamoto added, who did all the travel arrangements for the pilgrimage. “It stilled the mind, opened the heart, and freed the spirit.”