Father Damien’s connection
On Oct. 11 San Franciscans and much of the Catholic World will turn their attention to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where Pope Benedict XVI will solemnly canonize Father (Joseph) Damien de Veuster, SS.CC., the “Leper Priest of Molokai. The famed missionary died in his mission at Kalawao, Molokai, 120 years ago. Some San Franciscans still recall the enthusiastic reception of his remains when the S. S. Republic, carrying them from Honolulu, called here in February, 1936. For five days The City of St. Francis accorded Blessed Damien a memorable reception.
The Archdiocese of San Francisco on Oct. 15 will add its solemn tribute to the newly-canonized saint when a relic of Father Damien will receive public veneration in St. Mary’s Cathedral. In Oakland’s Christ the Light Cathedral the relic will be displayed again on October 16 before finally resting in a newly-constructed reliquary in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu later in the month.
The impetus for the transfer of Blessed Damien’s remains from Molokai to Belgium resulted from King Leopold’s inconsolable grief over the death in 1935 of his thirty-year-old Queen, Astrid, killed when thrown from their American convertible in a one-car accident on the shore of Lake Lucerne. He believed he would find peace of soul in having the holy man re-buried in Belgium.
The Roosevelt Administration and Archbishop John J. Mitty of San Francisco, whose Metropolitan See included the Hawaiian Islands, granted the request of the distraught King in the spring of 1936. The remains of the saintly missionary of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Picpus Fathers) would finally repose in a handsome crypt in the Order’s Church in Louvain (Leuven), Belgium.
Damien’s beloved lepers of Kalawao, Molokai, however, where he had been buried close to his Church of St. Philomena, were not happy about the removal of their cherished priest from his resting place of 47 years. Some recalled a Hawaiian kapu (taboo) that held that disturbing a body in the grave would result in the loss of another life.
Following a tearful farewell liturgy in the Honolulu Cathedral on February 3, 1936, a battalion of Coast Artillerymen and their marching band escorted Damien’s casket in a procession to the harbor during a heavy downpour. The Military Sea Transport S. S. Republic received it there for the voyage to San Francisco. For many Hawaiians, the heavy rain served to affirm a Hawaiian legend that “the skies weep when an alii (nobleman) leaves Hawaii.”
The San Francisco story had an eerie beginning. The Republic, on the morning of February 10, lay some 30 miles outside the Golden Gate awaiting entry to the Bay. About 5:15 a.m. Captain Edgar S. McLellan appeared on the bridge in his pajamas, checked the ship’s position and condition, and asked to be called again when the ship was “abeam the lightship.” Later that morning, when the vessel had reached the lightship, some 12 miles off “The Gate,” a steward called at the Captain’s quarters. There was no response. After three complete searches of the ship, the 61-year-old Captain, a native of Pasadena and a Master for 26 years, could not be found. Had the violation of the Hawaiian kapu against disturbing a body claimed its prophetic victim? Many native Hawaiians would surely have agreed.
The Republic docked at Fort Mason, where Archbishop Mitty received Damien’s koa wood casket with great reverence. Behind twelve motorcycle policemen, he led a solemn liturgical procession of priests, attired in cassock, surplice, and biretta, twelve blocks west on Van Ness Avenue to St. Mary’s Cathedral.
In the cortege were Thomas A. Connolly, later Archbishop of Seattle, and John J. Scanlon, who became the Bishop of Hawaii, and such well-known priests as Harold E. Collins, later of St. Cecilia’s, Cornelius Kennedy of St. Paul’s, and Ralph Hunt of St. Peter’s. Father Edgar Boyle led the priests’ choir in the Miserere as the procession made its way to the Cathedral.
During its stay, Damien’s casket lay in state in the old “Modern Romanesque” red-brick church on Van Ness Avenue, dedicated in 1891 by Archbishop Patrick W. Riordan and destroyed by fire in September, 1962. Probably no other set of observances ever held there rivaled the elaborate liturgies accorded to the first resident of the Hawaiian Islands to be proudly enrolled in the canon of the Saints.
Damien’s body reposed before the Gothic high altar from Monday through Friday. A steady stream of visitors paid their respects to the “Martyr of Molokai.” Always present was a six-man honor guard of soldiers, firemen, and police. Dr. Charles Miller, as a young acolyte, served at the Masses. In an interview he explained that the guard was not simply ceremonial. Guardsmen often had to restrain overly-demonstrative visitors from taking as relics pieces of the casket pall, the black, scarlet, and gold flag of Belgium.
During the five days of the Damien visit, the San Francisco press in news stories and editorials declared him to be a hero, martyr, and, in the popular mind, a saint. The San Francisco Chronicle, typical of the City’s four dailies, called him “one of the world’s great heroes.” Uncertain whether Damien would meet the Church’s prescription for canonization, the editorialist argued that “Father Damien meets the layman’s idea of a saint. He was a martyr in the cause of relief of human suffering.” The San Francisco News found Damien “something special in the way of heroes.” The “Monarch of the Dailies,” the San Francisco Examiner, acclaimed Damien “a martyred priest of the lepers and uncanonized saint.” Annie Laurie, the popular Examiner columnist, wrote that the “stupidest and most lethargic human being in this city of ours” would one day say, “I was in San Francisco when the body of the great saint went through, on the way to Belgium to the little village [Tremelo] where he was born.”
Seminarians from St. Patrick’s Seminary sang a solemn Pontifical Mass of Requiem celebrated by Archbishop Mitty on Thursday morning, February 13, 1936. Father James McHugh of St. Patrick’s Church delivered the homily. Students of the Archdiocesan schools together with their teachers attended.
The most elaborate ceremony was the final solemn Pontifical Mass of Requiem celebrated by the Archbishop on Friday, February 14. Civic, consular, and clerical dignitaries filled the Cathedral. An estimated 500 priests were present. Father Thomas F. Burke, pastor of the Paulists’ Old St. Mary’s, delivered the homily, in which he noted that “the spiritual influence that went out from the soul of this apostle of charity is the spirit that comes from Him, who was the inspiration of Father Damien himself.”
Led again by a police motorcycle escort, a procession of the clergy formed to accompany the remains of Damien from the Cathedral to the waiting S.S. Republic. Attired formally, as before, the clergy were pelted by a driving rain during the mile-long walk to Fort Mason. There, San Franciscans spoke their final aloha to the simple Belgian priest who had captured the admiration of so many in the world. Again, according to Hawaiian lore, when an alii was leaving San Francisco, “the skies wept.” As the ship cleared the wharf, the sound of her mournful, deep-pitched horn replaced the tones made by the Islanders’ traditional conch shell. Upon arrival in Panama, the Republic transferred Damien’s casket to the Belgian training ship Mercator for the final leg of the journey “home.”
The most prominent figures of church and state in Belgium, including King Leopold III, Premier Paul van Zeeland, and Jozef-Ernest Cardinal van Roey, greeted Damien on his return to Belgium when the Mercator docked in Antwerp on May 4, 1936. His casket, covered in the Stars and Stripes, was taken to the square before the Cathedral, where it lay in state. Thousands of the faithful silently passed by to pay homage to a son of little Tremelo who had become esteemed throughout the world. High praise came from the legendary Mahatma Gandhi, whose work among the poor in India shook an Empire. He declared Damien’s life story, “the inspiration for his work.”
Gordon Seeley, Ph.D., is a retired professor of History at San Francisco State University and a member of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
By Gordon Seeley, Ph.D.
