A German-American Franciscan sister who spent over thirty years caring for leprosy patients at Kalaupapa, Hawaii, canonized in 2012.

Saint Marianne, born Barbara Cope in Germany and raised in America, was a Franciscan sister who spent more than three decades caring for Hansen’s disease patients at the isolated Kalaupapa settlement on Molokai, Hawaii, continuing the work of Saint Damien after his death. She died there on August 9, 1918, at eighty years old. She was beatified in 2005 and canonized in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI.

Quick Facts

• Born: January 23, 1838
• Died: August 9, 1918, age 80
• Place: Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii, USA
• Venerated as: Religious, Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Syracuse, New York

Who Was Saint Marianne?

Saint Marianne was a German-born American religious sister of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Syracuse, New York, who spent the last decades of her life caring for patients with Hansen’s disease, or leprosy, at the isolated settlement of Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai in Hawaii, where she died on August 9, 1918, at eighty years old. She had already led hospitals in New York before answering the call to serve at Kalaupapa, where she also cared for and continued the work of Saint Damien of Molokai after his own death.

Historical Setting

In the nineteenth century, Hansen’s disease patients in Hawaii were forcibly segregated at the remote Kalaupapa peninsula, often with minimal medical or spiritual care, until missionaries like Saint Damien and later Marianne arrived to serve them directly. Marianne’s own religious congregation had already gained a reputation for hospital administration on the American mainland before she volunteered for this far more difficult and stigmatized mission.

Why the Church Remembers Saint Marianne

Marianne is remembered for choosing to serve patients whom much of society had abandoned out of fear of contagion, providing not only medical care but also dignity, order, and hope to a community long treated as outcasts, continuing this ministry for over thirty years until her death.

Canonization and Feast Day

Available records show Marianne’s beatification in 2005 and canonization in 2012, when Pope Benedict XVI canonized her.

What Catholics Can Learn Today

Marianne’s decision to serve those most feared and avoided by society is a powerful model of Christian charity that goes beyond comfort, seeking out precisely those whom others have abandoned.

A Prayer to Saint Marianne

Saint Marianne, servant of the outcast, pray for all who care for the sick and the forgotten, that they may love as fearlessly as you did at Kalaupapa. Amen.

Sources

• Vatican.va (canonization records, 2012)
• The Roman Martyrology