[NYer]

Pope Benedict XVI, in background at left, gestures to the faithful during a canonization ceremony at the Vatican Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009. the pontiff gave the Roman Catholic church five new saints Sunday, including Father Damien, born as Jozef De Veuster in 1840, a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium who cared for leprosy victims on the Hawaiian island of Molokai from 1873 to 1889, when the disease killed him. The other new Saints are 19th century polish bishop Zygmunt Szczesny Felinski; Spanish faithful Francisco Coll y Guitart and Rafael Arniaz Baron, and Jeanne Jugan, a Frenchwoman described by Vatican Radio as an 'authentic Mother Teresa ahead of her time.'

The Holy Father delivered his homily in the various languages of the newly canonized saints.

[knarf]

Wow ... what a mixed metaphor.

[fish hawk]

Hawaii has it's first Saint. Father Damien who risked his life and died from leprosy dedicating his work to the Lepers of Kalaupapa Molokai. Several from here went to the ceremony at the Vatican. Big news in todays papers throughout all of Hawaii.