WE LEPERS

WE LEPERS

BY THESE WORDS

DAMIEN

LET HIS FLOCK KNOW

HE HAD CONTRACTED LEPROSY

A DISEASE

WHICH AT THAT TIME

WAS CONSIDERED HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS

POSSIBLY TRANSMITTED BY CONTACT

MAYBE SEXUAL

IT WAS CONSIDERED AT THAT TIME

A CURSE BY GOD

FOR IMMORALITY

DAMIEN

KNEW HE WAS PURE

HE OFFERED HIS BODY

TO BE CHECKED FOR SIGNS OF STDS

TO PROVE HIS OWN INNOCENCE

PLUS THAT OF HIS FLOCK

LEPROSY WAS BAD ENOUGH

WITHOUT CALUMNY

WE OFTEN DO THAT TO OUR HEROES

DENIGRATE THEM

BY STATEMENTS TRUE OR FALSE

TO DILUTE THEIR MESSAGE

CHRIST WAS SAID TO HAVE A DEVIL

LUTHER TO BE A HERETIC

KING TO BE AN ADULTERER

BONHOEFFER A TRAITOR

DAMIEN TO HAVE HAD SEXUAL

RELATIONS WITH A LEPER

IGNORE THE MESSAGE

DEGRADE THE MESSENGER

AS DONE BY REV HYDE

WHEN HE INFERRED

THAT DAMIEN MISSION WAS A FAILURE BECAUSE HE NEEDED A BATH

PROBABLY TRUE

HE WAS MORE CONCERNED WITH HIS FLOCK THAN HIMSELF

ASK A MOTHER OF A SICK TODLER

WHAT HER PRIORITIES ARE

“In answer to your inquiries about Father Damien, I can only reply that we who knew the man are surprised at the extravagant newspaper laudations, as if he was a most saintly philanthropist. The simple truth is, he was a coarse, dirty man, headstrong and bigoted. He was not sent to Molokai, but went there without orders; did not stay at the leper settlement (before he became one himself), but circulated freely over the whole island (less than half the island is devoted to the lepers), and he came often to

Honolulu. He had no hand in the reforms and improvements inaugurated, which were the works of our Board of Health, as occasion required and means were provided. He was not a pure man in his relations with women, and the leprosy of which he died should be attributed to his vices and carelessness. Others have done much for the lepers, our own ministers, the government physicians, and so forth, but never with the Catholic idea of meriting eternal life.”

REV HYDE

BUT IN DAMIEN CASE R. L. STEVENSON

WROTE IN HIS DEFENSE

R l Stevenson to rev Hyde

But, sir, when we have failed, and another has succeeded; when we have stood by, and another has stepped in; when we sit and grow bulky in our charming mansions, and a plain, uncouth peasant steps into the battle, under the eyes of God, and succours the afflicted, and consoles the dying, and is himself afflicted in his turn, and dies upon the field of honour – the battle cannot be retrieved as your unhappy irritation has suggested. It is a lost battle, and lost for ever. One thing remained to you in your defeat – some rags of common honour; and these you have made haste to cast away

Some say he wasn't a scholar

But he mastered Latin

To become a priest

He mastered Hawaiian

To serve his flock

Which displayed two attributes

Which characterized Damien

Persistence

Bulldog determination

He fought the state for more money

He fought the church

For the money

Sent for Leper's care

Siphoned off for other religious work

There was much denominational bitterness in Hawaii

It didn't bother Damien

He had stateside denominations helping him

Which led to church and state complaining

That it put them in a bad light

Though they weren't adverse

To bragging

About the little they did

Or proclaiming first rights to the doing

None of which helped the leper

Who was ignored in the fight

He was warned

About physical contact with the lepers

But he soon learned

That he couldn't be a shepherd at a distance

So he treated their wounds

Comforted the dying

Buried the dead

Fought the strong

For the week's share of food

I think what I admire most about Damien

Is that he lived out

What Bonhoeffer said about facing evil

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

Frank a Vollmer