Quick Facts
- Son of a small farmer.
- Studied at the College of Braine-le-Comte.Joined the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Picpus Fathers) on 7 October 1860, taking the name Damien.
- Seminarian in Paris, France.
- Volunteered for missionary work while still in seminary, and was sent to Hawaii.
- Ordained in Honolulu on 24 May 1864.
- Missionary on islands where his single parish was the size of all of his native Belgium.
- Resident priest in the leper colony on Molokai where for years he worked alone to minister to the patients' spiritual and medical needs.
- His work turned a wretched dump for the unwanted into a real community with the best treatment of the day, and patients who lived strong spiritual lives.
- He contracted leprosy in 1885, and though severely crippled by the disease, Father Damien worked until the end.
