Pilgrims yearn to visit isolated peninsula where Catholic saints cared for Hawaii’s leprosy patients
KALAUPAPA, Hawaii — Kalaupapa beckoned to Kyong Son Toyofuku. She had long prayed to visit the hard-to-reach Hawaiian peninsula, trapped by its deep-green, sheer sea cliffs and rugged, black rock shores that glisten under the Pacific’s pristine waters.
As a daily Mass-going Catholic devoted to Saint Damien of Molokai, she wanted to walk where he walked, pray where he prayed, and witness for herself the place — both stunning and haunting — where the late priest spent a pivotal part of his life caring for banished people sick with leprosy.
The pilgrimage to Kalaupapa, defined by its natural isolation in northern Molokai, is logistically challenging and restricted under normal circumstances. It is even more so today because of lingering COVID-19 pandemic restrictions that canceled all pilgrimages and tours of the national historical park to protect the peninsula’s eight remaining former patients. Park and state health department officials are considering when to resume organized pilgrimages and tours.
For Toyofuku, a series of permissions came together at the right moment this summer. At the invitation of Kalaupapa’s priest, she retraced Father Damien’s footsteps in a place where for more than a century nearly no one wanted to go — and many would never leave.
Her husband, Lance Toyofuku, called all the difficulty God’s plan.
“Maybe the people who really want to get there will be able to go there,” he said. “You don’t want a million people going there every year.”
Kalaupapa, now a refuge for those who still call the peninsula home, was once the government’s answer to a deadly leprosy outbreak in the 1800s that persisted into the next century.
Missionaries, like Father Damien and Mother Marianne — who also became a Catholic saint following her service on the island — moved to Kalaupapa to care for the new residents’ physical and spiritual needs. The patients were immersed in suffering from the disease and the separation, said Alicia Damien Lau, one of two Catholic sisters currently living and serving on the peninsula, but the sick still found ways to thrive.
“The patients were all saints in a sense,” she said.
More than 8,000 people, mostly Native Hawaiians, perished at Kalaupapa, including Damien, who eventually contracted leprosy, later called Hansen’s disease. The Belgian priest, born Joseph De Veuster, is credited with drastically improving living conditions in the settlement.
“When you look at the surrounding areas, you could just feel the peace and spirit working in you,” said Lance Toyofuku, who lives in Hawaii’s capital city. “It’s not like being in Honolulu with all the cars and all the people.”
At the end of a gravel road, Damien’s grave site stands next to the church the priest expanded in 1876.
Flags blow in the breeze at the grave of Father Damien outside St. Philomena Church on Kalaupapa, Hawaii, on July 18. Damien was canonized a Catholic saint in 2009 for his work taking care of the physical and spiritual needs of leprosy patients in the 1800s.
The National Park Service, is impossible. There are which cares for Kalaupapa’s ways which lead to everything.” cultural and historic resources, restored the church Lolesio never found the ahead of Damien’s 2009 Marianne statue, but the canonization. His body was saint’s words help her lead moved to Belgium in 1936. the school as it continues to His right hand was reburied educate students at a temporary in 1995 at the site. site.
The group also prayed at Kalaupapa is the final the grave of Saint Marianne. resting place for so many, Marianne Cope, who was including Honolulu Bishop born in Germany, died at Larry Silva’s great-grandfather. Kalaupapa in 1918 of natural Because of the causes and was canonized disease’s stigma, Silva, like in 2012. many others, didn’t learn of
Her dedication to caring this piece of family history for Kaluapapa’s people continues until he became an adult. to provide comfort in When he joined pre-pandemic the face of tragedy, like this pilgrimages, he would summer’s devastating fire on point out his great-grandfather’s the nearby island of Maui. headstone along with
Soon after the blaze Damien’s and Marianne’s destroyed most of Sacred graves during the settlement Hearts School, Principal tours.
Tonata Lolesio returned to “The story of Kalaupapa the ashes of the Lahaina is the story of isolation and campus. She searched for fear,” said Silva, whose diocese a 12-inch metal statue of includes the peninsula. Marianne. But that’s not the full narrative,
A quote from the nun he said, “People were served as a prominent message resilient and tried to make at the school: “Nothing the best of it.”