This short video tells the life of "Saint Damien" at the Leper Colony in Molokai, Hawaii. You will also see the "Molokai Mule Ride" to the Colony should you decide to visit.
St. Damian please pray for us all, thanks for your great faith and amazing witness for our Lord in this sinful world, in our Mighty Lord Holy Name Amen....
We only hear about the bad priests. Here is a good one, someone we should all aspire to be like. God bless him and all those who suffered with leprosy, especially before he came to Molokai.
@@sunny2shoes unfortunately you are correct about the media. There are many good people in the Catholic church that touch so many lifes. This situation makes me very sad also.
This is God's Church, His priests should and could be like Him, so it's depends on the person, the gate of hell can never destroy Her because the Holy Spirit is moving ahead in everything for the sake of God's Mercy....
It is the content of one's heart that judges character, not religious faith. Its the Parable of the Mustard Seed that the Kingdom of Heaven is within...The world can be a hell, a terrible place of tragedy and of horrid afflictions, and the only way to resolve this is by how you see the world and what actions you do to resolve the issue.This is the lesson of Father Damien for me. Total selflessness and empathy of the highest degree and the conviction to transform a pitiful place of suffering and despair into a loving gentle community full of hope and life. Truly a saint among humanity. For all the suffering these poor souls endured, they are now immortal and we talk about them now 150 years later because of Father Damien.
INCREDIBLE VIDEO! I love Saint Damien so much. He gave his whole life to those in need, then gave some more! I pray to be with Him and our dear Lord Jesus in heaven someday. Watch Molokai: The Father Damien Story. It’s soooo good!!!
I never knew he did all that building and teaching farming etc. Sounds like that colony would have never developed or survived if not for him, esp with the people's physical handicaps.
I always wanted to visit Kalaupapa, MOLOAKI, Hawaii, USA for many years since 1973. I am old now and am enduring a brain tumor. A dear priest, Father Damien, in his sixteen year on MOLOAKI, was a brave and blessed man. He did so very much for the leper’s on the island. 🙏Pray for us dear Saint Father Damien and Saint Mother Marianne, who took over Father Damien’s work after He died on April 15, 1889.🙏💕
I wish none of this happened to beautiful people that should have never been treated like this.. colonisation of the Americas, Australia etc was so terrible...so sad!
It was wrong of them to take his remains to Belgium when his heart and soul were on the island. The Catholic Church betrayed Fr Damien many times when he pleaded for help. Monies that were sent to him were held back in Honolulu. The final betrayal was removing his remains from the place he loved and built. I think a petition must be started to undo this injustice done to him and return his remains to its right place on the island. I hope a committee could look into getting this done. He will not rest until he is returned to his rightful place with his people on Molokai. Please get it done as we honor him.
I wondered what kind of place could be more disturbing & nauseating to work in. Then I saw a documentary on American Civil War hospitals. Death, pain, injuries & gangrene everywhere.
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae or Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Initially, infections are without symptoms and typically remain this way for 5 to 20 years. Symptoms that develop include granulomas of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This may result in a lack of ability to feel pain, which can lead to the loss of parts of extremities, due to repeated injuries or infection (due to unnoticed wounds). Weakness and poor eyesight may also be present. Leprosy is spread between people (and possibly from armadillos). This is thought to occur through a cough, or contact with fluid from the nose of an infected person. Leprosy occurs more commonly among those living in poverty. Contrary to popular belief, it is not highly contagious. The two main types of disease are based on the number of bacteria present: paucibacillary and multibacillary. The two types are differentiated by the number of poorly pigmented, numb skin patches present, with paucibacillary having five or fewer and multibacillary having more than five. The diagnosis is confirmed by finding acid-fast bacilli in a biopsy of the skin, or by detecting the DNA using polymerase chain reaction. Leprosy is curable with a treatment known as multidrug therapy. Treatment for paucibacillary leprosy is with the medications dapsone and rifampicin for six months. Treatment for multibacillary leprosy consists of rifampicin, dapsone, and clofazimine for 12 months. A number of other antibiotics may also be used. These treatments are provided free of charge by the World Health Organization. Globally in 2012, the number of chronic cases of leprosy was 189,000, down from some 5.2 million in the 1980s. The number of new cases was 230,000. Most new cases occur in 16 countries, with India accounting for more than half. In the past 20 years, 16 million people worldwide have been cured of leprosy. About 200 cases are reported per year in the United States. Leprosy has affected humanity for thousands of years. The disease takes its name from the Greek word λέπρᾱ (léprā), from λεπῐ́ς (lepís; "scale"), while the term "Hansen's disease" is named after the Norwegian physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen. Separating people by placing them in leper colonies still occurs in places such as India, China, and Africa. However, most colonies have closed, since leprosy is not very contagious. Social stigma has been associated with leprosy for much of history, which continues to be a barrier to self-reporting and early treatment. Some consider the word "leper" offensive, preferring the phrase "person affected with leprosy". It is classified as a neglected tropical disease. World Leprosy Day was started in 1954 to draw awareness to those affected by leprosy.
Thanks for the info. I would guess that it was probably right for them to isolate those who were infected as they would be carriers. Sadly it was done in a cruel way. The Bible even mentions the deadly disease. With the lepers living outside the city limits in caves or in the open banished from society. Do they know why some catch it and others don't? I am surprised we have not eradicated it from this world like we have done with other diseases. I had no idea that majority of cases are in India. I visited India about 10 years ago and never knew of it then, I did see lots of poverty even though they have plenty of incredibly wealthy people living in India.
I didn’t like the tour guide at all. He implied that people were sent to Molokai because they were being discriminated against and marginalized. That’s B.S.! Healthy people were terrified, and rightly so, of contracting the disease which was incurable and fatal at the time. Let alone the fact that leprosy literally destroys human tissue such as skin, muscles and bones. I would have been terrified, too. The King did what he thought was best. This was not done for political reasons. It was done for health reasons.
Leprosy is not very contagious (it spreads only through prolonged physical contact of several months) and people with leprosy were treated by native hawaiians through care and support from their family. It was only due to the horror of visiting missionaries who carried significant cultural baggage that this attitude changed and molokai was established and people with leprosy were treated as criminals. Further, white people were by and large not sent to molokai; they were treated in hospitals. Being sent to molokai was in reality only enforced on native hawaiians, so yes, it was incredibly discriminatory.
