Known affectionately as the "beloved mother of the outcasts," Blessed Marianne Cope, who ministered to Hansen’s disease patients in Kalaupapa for the last 39 years of her life, is one step away from being canonized as a saint, Hawaii’s second after St. Damien.

"I think it’s great. She deserves that," Kalaupapa resident Clarence Kahilihiwa, 70, said. Cope dedicated her life to the patients at Kalaupapa when she arrived to help Father Damien de Veuster, Kahilihiwa said. "She never come for two weeks or two months. She came for give her all."

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes for Saints approved a petition Tuesday asking Pope Benedict XVI to officially declare Blessed Marianne Cope, Order of St. Francis, a saint of the church, Bishop of Honolulu Larry Silva said.

The matter next goes before the pope, who would make the proclamation of canonization and set the ceremony date.

"When Marianne becomes a saint, imagine one small place like Kalaupapa get two saints," Kahilihiwa said.

Damien was canonized in 2009 as the first saint from Hawaii.

The Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities in Syracuse, N.Y., said the Vatican congregation had confirmed the unanimous ruling of the Vatican Medical Board that a second miracle attributed to Cope’s intervention was an inexplicable medical recovery. To be canonized a saint, there must be proof of two posthumous miracles.

Cope was born in Germany and raised in Utica, N.Y. In 1883 Cope, a 45-year-old hospital administrator, left her order in Syracuse to answer the Hawaiian kingdom’s call for religious health care workers to care for leprosy patients. When she arrived, Damien was dying, and she succeeded him as spiritual and moral leader of the settlement five months after his death.

In 2003-04 the Vatican Medical Board, theologians, cardinals and bishops at the Vatican congregation unanimously affirmed her "heroic virtue," and she became the Venerable Marianne Cope.

In 2004 the medical board unanimously ruled that the cure of a 17-year-old Syracuse girl with multiple organ failure was an inexplicable recovery, and theologians ruled it a miracle due to her intercession.

Details of the second miracle have not been released.

In 2005 Cope was proclaimed "Blessed" during a ceremony in Rome.

"We are particularly joyful in Hawaii, because of Blessed Marianne’s work here, but her example of selfless love can soon be an inspiration to all the world," Silva said. "She was a woman who brought hope and joy to people who had good reason to lose hope and to lament their condition in life.

"At this time when so many people are losing hope because of our economy and the increased unrest throughout the world," he said, "Blessed Marianne inspires us to work simply for the good of others and to allow God to work miracles through the simple things we do."

Gloria Marks, 73, who moved to Kalaupapa at age 21 in the 1960s, said, "In Hawaii this is the only place that you’re going to have two saints — Damien and Mother Marianne — because she came to help the women."

Marks’ late husband, Richard, traveled to Rome in 1983 to help bring the pope a book about Cope that was written by a Syracuse nun.

Three Franciscan nuns, one a nurse and two volunteers, remain in Kalaupapa to assist the patients.

Marks believes all the nuns should be recognized for trying to help the people of Kalaupapa. "They had to give up their lifestyle to come and help their patients out," she said. "I’m quite sure most of the patients appreciate it."

A gray marble statue of Cope was dedicated Nov. 23 at Saint Francis School, founded in Cope’s memory to train girls to care for Hansen’s disease patients.

"It’s a very happy day, a wonderful day," said Sister Joan of Arc Souza, head of the school. "Once she’s canonized, then it’ll be St. Marianne Hall and St. Marianne Cope Preschool," she said of two school buildings.

Hawaii News Now video: Path to sainthood cleared for Blessed Marianne Cope