{"id":109,"date":"2009-10-12T22:39:19","date_gmt":"2009-10-12T22:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html"},"modified":"2009-10-12T22:39:19","modified_gmt":"2009-10-12T22:39:19","slug":"a-latter-day-st-damien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html","title":{"rendered":"A Latter-day St. Damien?"},"content":{"rendered":"

From our Utah Desk…a curious news report<\/a> out of Salt Lake City indicates that one of the men canonized a saint this past weekend has also been embraced by the Mormons.  <\/p>\n

And that’s not all: <\/p>\n

Father Damien, the Roman Catholic priest who cared for lepers in Hawaii in the 19th century, apparently is a saint twice over.<\/p>\n

Damien, who was born Joseph De Veuster in Belgium, was canonized a saint by Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday in Rome.<\/p>\n

But Helen Radkey, a critic of the Salt Lake City-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Monday that research shows Mormons have both baptized Damien by proxy and “sealed” him for eternity to a wife named Marie Damien.<\/p>\n

There is no evidence Damien ever married, which would have been a violation of his vow of celibacy.<\/p>\n

St. Damien, who died of leprosy in 1889 after working among those quarantined on the Hawaiian island of Molokai for 16 years, is considered an intercessor for patients with leprosy (Hansen’s disease), HIV, AIDS as well as for abandoned children, disoriented youths, exploited women, neglected elderly people and oppressed minorities.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church declares a person to be a saint — or a model for the faithful and a person who has special pull with God in answer to prayers — only after extensive investigation and proof of two miracles.<\/p>\n

Radkey said research into the LDS Church’s FamilySearch database indicates that Damien, born in 1840 in Belgium, was baptized by proxy, given his “endowments” and sealed to his parents for eternity Oct. 22, 1983, in the Los Angeles Temple.<\/p>\n

More recently, Damien was sealed to a wife, which Radkey calls “bogus,” on March 15, 2000, at the Jordan River Temple in South Jordan.<\/p>\n

“It’s blatantly wrong to seal a person who took a vow of celibacy as a Catholic priest and is so revered in his Catholic religion,” said Radkey, a former Catholic. “It’s insulting to perform such an action posthumously. It’s very disrespectful.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s more, including Mormon reaction, at the link<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From our Utah Desk…a curious news report out of Salt Lake City indicates that one of the men canonized a saint this past weekend has also been embraced by the Mormons.  And that’s not all: Father Damien, the Roman Catholic priest who cared for lepers in Hawaii in the 19th century, apparently is a saint…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-saints"],"yoast_head":"\nA Latter-day St. Damien? - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Latter-day St. Damien? - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From our Utah Desk…a curious news report out of Salt Lake City indicates that one of the men canonized a saint this past weekend has also been embraced by the Mormons.  And that’s not all: Father Damien, the Roman Catholic priest who cared for lepers in Hawaii in the 19th century, apparently is a saint…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-10-12T22:39:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Latter-day St. Damien? - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Latter-day St. Damien? - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"From our Utah Desk…a curious news report out of Salt Lake City indicates that one of the men canonized a saint this past weekend has also been embraced by the Mormons.  And that’s not all: Father Damien, the Roman Catholic priest who cared for lepers in Hawaii in the 19th century, apparently is a saint…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html","og_site_name":"The Deacon's Bench","article_published_time":"2009-10-12T22:39:19+00:00","author":"Deacon Greg Kandra","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html","name":"A Latter-day St. Damien? - The Deacon's Bench","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-10-12T22:39:19+00:00","dateModified":"2009-10-12T22:39:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2009\/10\/a-latter-day-st-damien.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"A Latter-day St. Damien?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/","name":"The Deacon's Bench","description":"Where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/5a7b3c6e9d155e382842aa310ff9b1ee","name":"Deacon Greg Kandra","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/114\/1144d939be636f641ea021e1d347f9fdx96.jpg","caption":"Deacon Greg Kandra"},"description":"A Roman Catholic deacon serving the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, Greg Kandra is News Director for the diocese's cable channel, NET (New Evangelization Television.) Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}