St. Marianne Cope is returning to Hawaii to stay.
The remains of Hawaii’s second saint will reside permanently in Honolulu’s downtown Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, according to the Hawaii Catholic Herald.
Bishop Larry Silva will welcome the remains at the cathedral at 10:45 a.m. Thursday with a formal ceremony and Mass. Enshrinement is set for 1 p.m., with veneration from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. The bishop will end the day’s events with prayer.
Cope’s remains were exhumed in 2005 from her Kalaupapa resting place, where she spent 30 years serving Hansen’s disease patients on Molokai. In preparation for her beatification that year, the remains were enshrined in Syracuse, N.Y., in St. Anthony Convent Chapel at the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, the religious congregation to which she belonged.
Cope was beatified at the Vatican on May 14, 2005, and canonized Oct. 21, 2012.
The full collection of the saint’s bones are sealed in a zinc-coated metal box. In the cathedral the box will be placed in a display cabinet that now holds a relic of Cope. She will be the only American saint whose remains will be enshrined in a cathedral, the mother church of a diocese, the Herald said.
Cope arrived in Hawaii in 1883 from Syracuse with six sisters to care for patients with Hansen’s disease. She soon opened Malulani Hospital, now called Maui Memorial Medical Center, and the Kapiolani Home for the healthy children of leprosy patients. In 1888 she went to Kalaupapa to run Bishop Home for female patients.
Cope died at age 80 in Kalaupapa in 1918.
The Catholic Herald also reported that the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace has been designated a "minor basilica" by Pope Francis in a decree issued May 10. The title is sometimes conferred on a church because of its historical, cultural and liturgical distinction.
An announcement from Silva said, "Our own cathedral, now to be known as the ‘Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace,’ was dedicated in 1843, making it one of the oldest cathedrals in the United States. It is where St. Damien was first welcomed when he arrived in Hawaii and where two months later he was ordained a priest. It is where St. Marianne was welcomed when she arrived in Hawaii with her Franciscan Sisters. It is where our diocesan community held the local celebrations after the canonizations of both saints and where their relics are now housed for veneration. It is the place where St. Marianne’s mortal remains will be enshrined on July 31, 2014."
The honor will be formally celebrated with a Mass of thanksgiving set for 10 a.m. Oct. 11, the fifth anniversary of Damien’s canonization.
