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More: zenit.org/article-27072?l=englishHONOLULU, Hawaii, OCT. 6, 2009 (Zenit.org).- “No one has survived this cancer. This illness will take you,” said Doctor Walter Chang to Audrey Toguchi in 1997 since, scientifically, there was nothing that could be done for her.
But Toguchi didn’t die from her cancer and her cure turned out to be the decisive miracle for the canonization of Father Damien de Veuster. Father Damien will be canonized this Sunday during a Mass celebrated by Benedict XVI in St. Peter’s Square.
Father Damien, also known as the apostle of the lepers, was born in Belgium in 1840. At 33 he went to the island of Molokai, Hawaii, where lepers were sent and lived in isolation.
Depriving himself of everything, the priest stayed there serving, catechizing and administering the sacraments to those who had contracted this disease. He himself contracted it and died in 1899. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 1995.