‘It’s like having family come home’

A small wooden canoe accompanied by a pair of red, black and yellow kahili carried the remains of St. Marianne Cope — nestled in a zinc-coated box — into the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace on Thursday morning.

Cope, known as Mother Marianne, led the first contingent of sister-nurses to care for Hansen’s disease patients on Oahu and in Kalaupapa, Molokai, for three decades beginning in the late 1880s.

During Cope’s 35 years of caring for patients, she and her Franciscan sisters never contracted the disease, which was chronic and contagious at that time.

"It’s kind of a homecoming, if you will. This is where she became a saint, so it’s good to have her back here," said Bishop Larry Silva, who heads the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu.

The events held at the cathedral in downtown Honolulu included a welcoming ceremony, veneration, Mass and enshrinement.

"She did the major part of her work here in Hawaii," Silva said. "Her devotion to people who were really outcast, people with leprosy," generated the admiration of others — "such admiration that they wanted to imitate her holiness, her devotion to Christ, and wanted to follow that, and that’s why she was proposed to be a saint."

Cope, Hawaii’s second saint, was canonized in Rome on Oct. 21, 2012. Father Damien de Veuster was canonized in 2009.

Bernadette Galang, 63, who was among hundreds of attendees who filed into the cathedral Thursday, described the ceremony as a "joyous occasion."

"I started crying when I saw her remains go by," Galang said. "It’s like having family come home."

Clarence "Boogie" Kahilihiwa, a Kalaupapa resident, said, "She cared for all of us with aloha, compassion and dignity."

"We love her, and we are happy that she has returned home to Hawaii nei."

Cope’s remains are now enshrined in a display cabinet inside the cathedral. The diocese plans to build a connecting chapel that will house the full collection of Cope’s skeletal remains and a relic — a small box of bone fragments — along with St. Damien’s relic.

Barbara Koob (which eventually became "Cope") was born in West Germany. The next year, 1839, her family moved to New York state. At age 24 she entered the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities in Syracuse, N.Y., and became Sister Marianne.

Recognized as a deft administrator, Cope was tapped to help establish two general hospitals. Working alongside doctors, she picked up medical knowledge on everything from sanitation procedures to pharmacy skills, which she later put to use in Hawaii.

In 1883, when an emissary from Hawaii sent letters seeking capable leaders to provide health care for patients with Hansen’s disease, also known as leprosy, Cope –now known as Mother Marianne — was the only religious leader out of 50 contacted to respond positively.

In the decade preceding Cope’s arrival in Hawaii, thousands of Hansen’s disease patients had been sent by government order to Kalaupapa. In 1873 de Veuster moved to the island to live among the patients and minister to them.

Several months before de Veuster’s death in 1889, at age 49, Cope agreed to provide care for patients on Molokai. She died at age 80 in Kalaupapa in 1918.

Nine years ago Cope’s remains were exhumed and taken to Syracuse for enshrinement at St. Anthony Chapel in the convent of the Franciscan sisters, who had petitioned the Vatican to open the cause for her canonization.

According to Silva, the Sisters of Saint Francis decided to return the remains to Hawaii because of the great devotion to her here. (The move also was due in part to the closure and relocation of the religious order’s mother house, which meant Cope’s shrine had to be relocated as well.)

"She’s been very inspiring to me,"Silva said. "This whole process of moving toward her canonization has taught me a great respect for her, for her devotion, for her vision, for her … cutting-edge care of people, for her just humility and desire to serve."

Sister Roberta Smith, who spoke at Thursday’s ceremony, said Cope brought peace to many people.

"She brought love, care, dignity, respect to those who were … isolated, those who were cast off,"Smith said.

In May the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, where St. Marianne and St. Damien were first received when they came to the islands, was named a minor basilica, a designation given to churches with historic, architectural or cultural significance.