Remains of saint returned
HONOLULU — The remains of a saint known for caring for exiled leprosy patients have been returned to Hawaii.
St. Marianne Cope’s remains will arrive in a hearse today at Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu for a ceremony and Mass.
She was 80 when she died of natural causes in 1918 at the remote Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Molokai, where the Hawaiian kingdom exiled leprosy patients to control the disease. Her remains were exhumed from Kalaupapa in 2005 during her canonization process and taken to Syracuse, N.Y., where her religious congregation is based.
She gained sainthood in 2012.
Relocation from New York was necessary because the buildings of the campus where her remains were housed are no longer structurally sound, requiring the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities to move to another part of Syracuse.
It makes sense to keep her remains in Honolulu, as opposed to Kalaupapa, which can be accessed only via plane or mule, said Bishop Larry Silva of the Honolulu diocese.
A sealed zinc-coated metal box containing her bones will be placed upright in a koa wood and glass cabinet in the cathedral.
