On Oct. 21, World Mission Sunday, the Church will canonize two new American saints: Blesseds Marianne Cope (1838-1918) and Kateri Tekakwitha. Blessed Marianne will be canonized because of her heroic work with the lepers of Molokai, Hawaii, continuing the mission that Belgian priest St. Father Damien De Veuster had begun.

It all began with a letter: In 1803, Hawaiian missionary priest Father Leonor Fouesnel was desperate for nurses in Hawaii. He appealed to more than 50 superiors of religious orders in Canada and the United States. “Have pity on our poor sick,” he pleaded. Only one superior responded to his cry: Sister Marianne Cope, the provincial superior of the Order of St. Francis in Syracuse, N.Y.

via America’s New Saints: Kateri and Marianne | Daily News | NCRegister.com.

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