St. Francis School has a new statue of Blessed Marianne Cope, a venerated nun who cared for leprosy patients at Kalaupapa.

At a ceremony Nov. 23, Principal Sister Joan of Arc Souza and students placed flower and colorful yarn lei around the neck of the 5-foot-2-inch, gray marble statue, which was recently installed at the Manoa school next to Marianne Hall.

The statue was designed in China by Shanghai Best Look International. The company also designed a 7-foot-tall statue of Saint Damien, who also cared for Kalaupapa’s leprosy patients. That statue is being placed on the campus of Damien Memorial School.

Cope was a member of the Sisters of St. Francis, the religious order that runs the school. When a relic of Cope’s was brought to Hawaii in May, students at the school were the first in the islands to view it.

Her relic is on permanent display at Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu.

Born in Germany and raised in Utica, N.Y., Mother Marianne began caring for Hansen’s disease patients at the Kalaupapa settlement on Molokai in 1888, five months after Damien’s death. She died of natural causes in 1918 and was buried there.

Her body was exhumed in 2005 and taken to the Sisters of St. Francis Motherhouse in Syracuse, N.Y.

In 2004, Pope John Paul II declared Mother Marianne "venerable," the first step toward canonization, after the Vatican recognized her intercession for the unexplained cure of a New York girl dying of multiple organ failure. The Vatican must authenticate another miracle for her to be declared a saint.

Cope is one of five so-called Blesseds in the country and is poised to become the next saint with Hawaii ties. Damien gained sainthood in 2009.