Transcript of CS#120: Matthew Bunson St. Damien of Molokai

Transcript of Interview with Matthew Bunson about St. Damien of Molokai. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

St. Damien of Molokai – Apostle of the Exiled
All St. Damien de Veuster items
at The Catholic Company.

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-catalog/715/St-Damien-the-leper-de-Veuster-of-Molokai

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Chris Cash: This is the Catholic Spotlight, the show where we talk about what’s new, cool and exciting in the Catholic marketplace. I’m your host Chris Cash, director of E-Commerce for catholiccompany.com, your source for all your Catholic needs.

And today, we are talking with Matthew Bunson. He is the author of a book on Saint Damien of Molokai, the Apostle of the Exiled. This is and its especially relevant topic, because this weekend is the canonization of Saint Damien. So, welcome Matthew.

Matthew Bunson: Hello, it’s great to be with you again.

Chris Cash: We are actually very lucky to be catching Matthew, because he is heading out to Rome tomorrow to attend the canonization.

Matthew Bunson: Yes, I am. It’s quite an honor for me to be able to go. It’s been a while since I’ve been in Rome. But also, having grown up in Hawaii and having studied Damien and followed his life very closely, it’s a lot like going to the graduation of a very old friend of mine.

Chris Cash: A much, much older brother I’d say.

Matthew Bunson: And a much better person than I am.

Chris Cash: Now, how did you end up being invited to go the canonization or is it just something that you decided to do on your own?

Matthew Bunson: Well, the – that’s one of the reasons we are talking of course is that the – I have a new book out on Father Damien. My mother and I put this book together. It’s sort of the final edition of biography that she first did many years ago on Father Damien. And because of my friendship with a lot of the Sacred Heart Fathers who have of course followed the canonization very closely, they asked if I’d like to go. So, I was honored to be able to go to the canonization with them. And there’s going to be a very large contingent of people from Hawaii who are also invited to go and I looking forward to seeing them also.

Chris Cash: Now, have you ever actually been to the leper Colony on Molokai?

Matthew Bunson: Unfortunately, no and this is one of those horribly embarrassing things, in a way I lived in Hawaii for 17 years but never quite made it to Molokai. And it’s granted there are lot of different islands, so…

Chris Cash: Yes, it’s not like you can just hop on the bus and get over there.

Matthew Bunson: Right. However, I spent a very long amount of time in the Cathedral, of course in Honolulu, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace where Damien was actually ordained in 1864. And my mother and by benefit I also, helped to organize the Damien museum, which houses the vast repository of the effects and that relics of Father Damien and parts of the life and lot of his books, and his predo, his *** [03:01]. A lot of things that people find fascinating and enlightening and very moving about his life.

Chris Cash: Well, start of by talking about who Father Damien was and why his life was such – was a life of such horrid virtue? And then, maybe we can talk in a few minutes about the cause for his canonization and what was involved in bringing us to the point where he’s going to be canonized this weekend.

Matthew Bunson: Yes, well, simply put Father Damien de Veuster was a priest. He was a member of the Sacred Hearts Fathers, who wanted to become a missionary, was something that he wanted to do from his earliest time as a child. He knew that he was called to the priesthood. Now, he seemed really a fairly unlikely candidate, both to be a missionary and say to be a priest. He was a very peasant stock, he seemed very uneducated, he seemed – he was very rustic, by which I mean some people considered him to be a highly ill suited to be a pastor, a priest. He had first seemed to demonstrate little capacity for learning, he struggled with Latin and it’s amazing to me how many of the great Saints all struggled with Latin. And only by a great determination was he able to master enough Latin to be not just accepted in Sacred Hearts Fathers, but even to be ordained a priest, to be permitted to precede the Holy orders. So, as history often shows us, he was a most unlikely person to become an international hero, which is what he became before he died.

Chris Cash: So, what was it that happened? What forces created this leper colony? And what brought Father Damien to be the pastor there?

Matthew Bunson: Yes, this is one of those marvelous bits of providence. You had in Belgium this young peasant man, a peasant guy who wanted to become a priest. He was allowed to enter the Sacred Hearts Fathers and as I said he went through hard work was accepted. And his brother Pamphile was already a member of the Sacred Hearts and he was scheduled to go to serve in the missions. And Pamphile unfortunately became ill and had to drop out, Damien with what – this is something we can talk a little bit more about, with the sort of imminent practicality that he always displayed suggested to ahead of the – his potential and the head of Sacred Hearts Fathers that since there was already a birth open for his brother, he would go in his place. And this has of course far reaching consequences for everyone. And to everyone’s surprise, the head of the Sacred Hearts Fathers gave his permission.

Now, across the world in Hawaii in the early 1860’s, the Hawaiian Islands it’s like *** [05:53] place to live this paradise was stricken with the emergence of leprosy. And most people think of this as a disease of the ancient world as Old Testament in the *** [06:05]. And they’ve been brought into the islands, apposed from a couple of different directs. But they main one I they think was unfortunately among workers from China and Asia and its spread fairly quickly in parts of the Hawaiian population there. And the foreign population, by which I mean the Europeans and the Americans especially who had already established themselves in Hawaii went into full-fledged panic over the disease. And through their pressure, the monarch of Hawaii, that the King of Hawaii declared that Hawaii lepers that the people who are inflicted with the disease and indeed anyone who came down with the disease was to be removed from society for the good and safety of the rest of the kingdom. And they tried to find an ideal place to house them, and it turned out that the place they choose was on the island of Molokai. At the base of sheer rocky cliff, there’s a place called Kalaupapa and that is where a leper colony, a leprosarium was established. All with the best of intentions, and they hoped to have a lot of resources for them and medical care, and they established a superintendent. But as of ten happens, the best of intentions went horribly awry. And by the time, that Damien arrived conditions were deteriorating very rapidly.

So, you have these two interesting events, completely unrelated, you have the emergency – the emergence of leprosy in Hawaii. And then, Damien, this young man being sent all the way across the world to Hawaii where he was ordained a priest. He sort of finished the last bits of his formation in Honolulu and was ordained a priest and then sent of to the big Island, where he for the first time encountered leprosy and for the first time began working as a real missionary in the field.

Chris Cash: Now, there are still some places in the world, where leprosy continues to exist. You’re going to very briefly describe why people are so horrified by this specific disease?

Matthew Bunson: Yes, I – well, I think there are two reasons. One, it is possible to contract leprosy through contact with people with the disease. Now, there is as well as this very ancient stigma. I mean, when you think of lepers today, you think immediately of course of the Old Testament, you think of our lord healing the lepers. So, there was this horrendous stigma attached to the disease. And its associated also I think with the idea of separation, its – there is – there was even in Damien’s time this idea that those who are inflicted with leprosy were subject to some sort of a divine punishment. This was gods raft against them for an impure life or something like that.

Damien saw victims, he saw those who had contracted a horrible disease and wanted to give himself to care for them. But leprosy today, I’m happy to say thanks to a real concentrated effort by the world health organization, a lot of the countries of the first world is diminishing in its seriousness. And the number of victims largely through what’s called a multi-drug therapy. It’s much the same way that we have reduced the severity of the aids crises, HIV crises globally through a kind of cocktail which we use. And those who contract a disease can have it stopped in its tracks by this multi-drug therapy. That fortunately also really hasn’t cost that much, so thanks to the work of various leprosarium’s and scientist around the world. All of them like openly say that they were inspired in their work by Damien de Veuster. Leprosy I think is slowly on the road to extinction, but there are still pockets in Asia, South America and parts of Africa, where leprosy is still found and where people unfortunately every year still contract a disease.

Chris Cash: And I think one thing that I wanted to make sure we got to cross is just the horror of this disease is that your body goes numb. And then, through injuries to – since you can’t feel the injuries on your body like you would normally if you were in pain, you continue to injure yourself to the point where your body starts to deteriorate and rot and you eventually die from the complications.

Matthew Bunson: Right. And infections and everything else, yes. The pictures of lepers are some of the most horrifying to see of any disease. There are certain forms of leprosy including one called the leonine syndrome, which is what Damien actually contracted. That transform your skin completely so that you literally become unrecognizable even to your relatives from the swelling and other problems. And you are absolutely right that the disease itself destroys the nerves in the – your appendages. So that Damien in fact discovered that he first had the disease by accidentally pouring boiling water on his feet. And was stunned to realize that he had just done something that should be causing him to leap around the room, but he felt nothing. And that was this moment when he knew that something was seriously wrong and that he you know certainly has the disease. So, your legs and arms often have to be amputated in order to prevent ganglion, serious infections develop, you can develop severe respiratory problem and that the – the disease in some cases can bring on dementia and blindness. So, this is as terrible a disease as I think you could imagine.

Chris Cash: Yes, I mean, we think about the diseases we deal with this country and even AIDS tends to be the most feared disease in this country, and yet when you compare it to the horror of living with leprosy, its not even a good – not even a comparison.

Matthew Bunson: Right. But the comparison in a way is an apt one, because we can talk a little bit about that. Thanks to Damien, there are different HIV and AID centers in the United States and around the world that are named after him, the Damien Centers. Because Damien was willing to go where a lot of people aren’t and that is to care for those who are forgotten, those who are exiled, those who are ignored by society. And certainly in the early days of the AIDS, HIV AIDS crises and even today in parts of the world, those who are afflicted with the HIV virus and when full blown AIDS develop, you have people who die alone. And Damien was committed to the fact that no one should have to die alone, forgotten. And in that sense, then I think Damien’s work is a true inspiration for those who are engaged in AIDS ministry.

Chris Cash: And besides that, you know a big difference with AIDS is that the caretakers of someone, especially in that day and time, someone who is a caretaker to someone with leprosy had a good chance of contracting the disease as apposed to modern day AIDS caretakers and so you know…

Matthew Bunson: Yes, absolutely. Yes, yes that’s exactly true. And one of the things that Damien discovered when he first arrived on Molokai was that you have these poor victims who no one was really taking care of and the medical conditions there were absolutely just *** [03:35] terrible. They were dying alone and no one was there really to provide them the kind of medical care, they didn’t have proper shelter, they didn’t have words for them to die, medicines and you then you name it. It was pretty much missing from the leper colony. So, he put himself immediately at the very great risk when he first took up the position there.

Chris Cash: So, what was it that Damien did other than the things you kind of already touched upon that really made his name for being a person of heroic virtue in the colony?

Matthew Bunson: Yes, well, Damien had arrived in Hawaii, he was ordained a priest and he was sent to the Big Island. Immediately, he became aware of course of this crises of leprosy in the islands. And the colony itself, everyone was aware that there was something – things were pretty bad on Molokai. And one of the things that the – his Bishop Luis-Desire-Maigret who is one of those forgotten heroes in the missionary of the world asked to his priest of Sacred Hearts Fathers, he asked if several of them would be willing to volunteer to serve as temporary Chaplin on Molokai to these lepers. So, they had some sort of spiritual care, some sort of Pastoral Ministry. And his idea was that they’ll be there for a couple of months and then he would rotate them out, because you can imagine that the conditions being what they were, there were this medical risk and just the sheer grind and that the toll that that kind of ministry would take on someone.

Damien, when he heard about this immediately volunteered not just to go to the Islands, but to be their permanent Chaplin. And what’s remarkable about that is that he had it seems, since long before he volunteered for this that he was going to be caring for the lepers. He says this much in his letters back home to his brother and also to the one of the heads of the Sacred Hearts Fathers that he knew innately through his prayer that god was pointing him in the direction that he was supposed to go. So, Maigret his Bishop says to the Lepers when he bring the Damien into their midst. And this is in 1873 that I bring a Father to you, and he said he loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you. So that were prophetic words to live and die with you. And from that point on, nothing was ever the same in this leper colony. People used to phrase Damien with selfless, well that’s absolutely true, but in a way it’s a understatement. Damien wasn’t selfless. In fact, he gave of himself, but he gave of himself because as a priest he saw himself as a Christ in the midst of these lepers, in the midst of their suffering. And he wrote to his brother Pamphile that I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all the Jesus Christ.

So, right from the start, he elevated what he was doing to the level of heroic virtue by the degree of his charity. And then, over the next 15 years as he continued to work with them and eventually died among them, he practiced the virtues in a truly heroic way. In particular, the virtue I think afforded to. Because consider when he first arrived there, he had to bury at least 600 people with his own hands. He made the coffins, he dug the graves, he wrapped the clothes and put them into the ground. He built their shelters; he made a clinic for them. He did all of this essentially on his own, but he had to go to sleep every night and wake up everyday knowing that he was going to have to face lepers in the last stage of the disease, he had to amputate arms and legs. He had to deal with this unbelievable things, things that are literally unimaginable to the average person. And he did this every day for 15 years.

Chris Cash: And all the while having full knowledge that he was eventually going to end up like this, even though he had the choice to leave.

Matthew Bunson: Yes, exactly, he volunteered to stay there. And he could have left it anytime you see, no one would have thought maybe anything less of him had he written at some point to his superiors that I really can’t do this anymore. But he stayed because he knew that this is where Christ wanted him, Christ had asked him to be here. So, it was impossible for him to say no. Some of us might be able to, but he couldn’t.

Chris Cash: Now, let’s move on just a little bit to the cause for his canonization and the significance of this for America, because you know we don’t have a whole lot of Americans saints yet. You’re Mr. Statistics I know. Do you have any statistics on how many American saints there are?

Matthew Bunson: Not that many actually. We have – if we think of, we have Elizabeth Ann Seton, we have Mother Cabrini, we have Katherine Drexel. There are few others who are blessed; we have Kateri Tekakwitha for example. But then, we also have a number of causes that are currently open. We have…

Chris Cash: Mother Theodore Guerin here in Indiana I know.

Matthew Bunson: Yes, exactly she was – who was just canonized last year I think. We also have that the causes of for Fulton Sheen, we have Patrick Peyton. We have also Cardinal Cooke for example. I mean there are lot of causes that are open, but Damien is sort of a new addition for Saints.

Now, some quibble because Hawaii was still technically a kingdom when he was serving there that we shouldn’t necessarily consider him a Saint for United States. But I think that’s a bit of technicality that really doesn’t need to apply here. Plus I should also add that one of his greatest allies, Mother Marianne Cope who helped to run the leper colony on Molokai after Damien’s death. She’s now blessed in her own cause for canonization is preceding very swiftly.

Chris Cash: So, how did the cause for his canonization become opened? And I mean, obviously, he is well respected even far beyond within the church for his efforts there on Molokai. But you know you want to outline very briefly his cause and I assume that there were some miracles associated with it?

Matthew Bunson: Yes. Yes, absolutely, yes. Well, it’s commonly thought, it’s sort of in the popular imagination that James – that the Damien was forgotten by the world. That he sort of died on Molokai and the world, then suddenly realized what was in their midst. Actually, Damien was an internationally renowned figure who was beloved all over the world. There were Anglican divines for example who’s constantly sent him money, because they admired the work he was doing. When he was diagnosed with Leprosy, a lot of newspapers around the world carried with banner headlines that the Damien of Molokai had diagnosed with leprosy himself. And at the time of his deaths, it was again banner headlines and there was mourning all over the world about his passing. So…

Chris Cash: So, very similar to the fame that mother Theresa had working in India?

Matthew Bunson: Yes, exactly. And in a way that some people think that if you are famous in your lifetime that somehow that takes away from you possibly being a Saint. I mean, it’s for the way the modern world way thinks, quite the opposite. You had then the attestation, the testimony of so many people who knew in his life that it really was considered a matter of time before his cause was open. And his cause really opened in a fairly shorter order at – after his death, it’s just like a lot of causes. It takes a while. One of the reasons why his remains were requested to be brought back to Belgium by the Kingdom of Belgium in 1936 with the full support of the Sacred Hearts Fathers, because they knew of course what they had, that they knew that this was a truly precious human being.

The causes as often as the case took a long time. You know unfortunately that’s the way and it should be. I think any cause for canonization has to follow a very careful norms so that we are not rushing into things. In 1977, Pope Paul the 6th declared Father Damien to be venerable and that was then followed in June of 1995, when Pope John Paul the second beatified him. Of course, he gave him that the full title of blessed and that was on the basis of the first miracle. And subsequently, a second miracle was proved by the congregation of the causes of saints. And that cleared the way for his canonization that just took – that this is going be taking place this weakened. So, again, if we think we go back all the way to the 1930’s till today, that is a very long time and that despite the efforts of a lot of people both in Hawaii and around the world.

Chris Cash: Do you have any information on the miracles that occurred?

Matthew Bunson: Yes, the – that the second – the first one I believe was part of a cure of a nun in France that actually took place in 1895. She prayed for Damien’s intercession and she was apparently going to be dying fairly soon of an intestinal disease. And that immediately after requesting Damien’s intercession, she was cured of her ailment. The second miracle was attributed to the intercession of Damien by a woman by the name of Audrey Toguchi. Now, its interesting about that is that she is a woman from Hawaii was diagnosed with terminal cancer and went to the grave of Father Damien on Molokai and was subsequently healed of all of her cancer. And the – so there you have it. A very careful analysis of the medical records was undertaken as is always required, a committee of scientists and medical people who examined everything. And the miracle itself was given approval proved by the congregation of the causes of saints clearing the way for the canonization.

Chris Cash: And how many years ago was the second miracle?

Matthew Bunson: I believe it was in ’97.

Chris Cash: Okay, so it’s still even after the second miracle took another 12 years to make all of the arrangements to finalize things and…

Matthew Bunson: Yes, that’s exactly. And that’s one of the reason why when we talk about the causes for saints, we always have to stress; we have to be very patient with these things, because they precede at their own pace. And there are a lot of causes that will never get past certain points, because for whatever reason a miracle isn’t proven or a miracle isn’t proven to the satisfaction of the congregation of the causes of saints, because they have very stringent rules set in canon law and of the church law to make sure that the – what’s happening is verifiable. At least, as best we can from a medical standpoint and that takes a while.

Chris Cash: Now, I also want to talk briefly here about the applications of the message of Father Damien and what he has done to the average individual out there, as well as to priest here in the – here the priest you know. One of the things that comes to mind to me when I think of Father Damien is it reminds of the priests on D-Day who insisted that they wanted to go out with the troupes onto the beaches in Normandy despite the fact that they knew they were going to get mowed down, but they felt it was their responsibility to be there, to deliver last rites to the men and to give last chances for confessions on the boats going over and so forth. Whereas other clergy, I mean priests were pretty much the only clergy that landed on D-Day.

Matthew Bunson: Right. That’s a – it’s a great point and what’s stopping I think *** [26:11] I think we lost – give or take about 5,000 men that day, the Normandy beaches. And that the priest were willing to go out to land on those beaches, because they believed in something. The believed that when you die, you should not die alone, you should have the opportunity to die with Christ, you should have the opportunity to die with the sacraments. And that is the level of remarkable commitment that is heroic. And I think your analogy is exactly right that, that Damien knew that Christ was asking him to go and take care of these lepers under what were pretty difficult circumstances, I think we’ve been talking about. Why because, we believe in the deeper reality of things, we believe that the sacraments should be there for you at the end that the Vatican that you should travel to Christ with the sacraments, and that’s what Damien believed. And that the – what’s interesting about that is that there is that lesson that you just hit on for the average person that – and that goes back to the idea of charity that we really can’t give of ourselves to our family, to our friends, we can do it selflessly, but we can do it because we have these models. But the other is that the virtue that I was talking about earlier fortitude. We all have problems and those problems are unique to us and some problems seem worse to us than other people’s, but they are still problems that we have to deal with in daily life. Damien is a great model for us, you can’t get up everyday and deal with the problems and challenges that life brings, and you can do it in pretty heroic fashion. Again by staying centered on what Christ is asking you to do with that particular moment.

And then, there is that issue of the priesthood. I think Damien from the moment he arrived on Kalaupapa, wanted to be that alter Christus, to use the traditional phrase, he wanted to be Christ in their midst to be another Christ for them, which is what a priest is called to do, to act in persona Christi. And he had this marvelous pastoral practicality about him. He did the job that was in front of him like so many pastors we know, he barely had time to worry about a lot of the deeper issues of life and everything else, he did it because he knew that that’s what Christ wanted him to do and he found practical solutions to real world problems like priest do. So, I think he’s a great role model for priest everywhere.

Chris Cash: Well, I know you have another interview you got to get of to as well as you need to finish packing up for your trip tomorrow. Was there anything else you wanted to share real quickly before we hit of?

Matthew Bunson: Just that lets also remember that there are few other saints who are going to be canonized this Sunday, including one who has American connections and that’s Blessed Jeanne Jugan who was a French nun, who did some great work in Canada. So, let’s celebrate that as well, as well as the other saints who are going to be canonized. And let’s take a little bit of time this weekend if we can to give some thought to the canonization, and go to the Vatican Website. It should be available on Monday and read the holy Fathers homily, because that’s always worth reading and his reflections on the Saints that he is going to be proclaiming on Sunday.

Chris Cash: And of course we have a wide variety of Father Damien books, medals, icons, photographs and so forth now available over CatholicCompany.com for you to peruse through. I will have links of those over in the show notes or of course you can always go to CatholicCompany.com and search for Saint Damien, they will show up. It’s a D-A-M-I-E-N, Saint Damien of Molokai. And of course, within that group you will also find Matthew and Margaret’s book. Saint Damien of Molokai, Apostle of the Exiled. It’s a great read and I’m sure you will all enjoy it very much.

Matthew, I very much appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule here to come and talk to us. And I…

Matthew Bunson: Oh, my pleasure, anytime, anytime.

Chris Cash: Absolutely and I hope that you have a lot of fun over in Rome this weekend.

Matthew Bunson: I think that’s a safe bet, its Rome.

Chris Cash: I’ve never been so I don’t know.

Matthew Bunson: Well, thank you and God bless.

Chris Cash: God bless you too.

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Transcript of Interview with Matthew Bunson about St. Damien of Molokai. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com

Listen Now to the audio version of the show.

St. Damien of Molokai – Apostle of the Exiled
All St. Damien de Veuster items
at The Catholic Company.

http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-catalog/715/St-Damien-the-leper-de-Veuster-of-Molokai