AOC Attacks Fr. Damien . . . Catholic League Demands: Apologize To Catholics And Hawaiians

By PEGGY MOEN

NEW YORK — Catholic League President Bill Donohue in an August 3 letter demanded that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) apologize for her attack on Fr. Damien.
AOC (D., N.Y.), according to Catholic News Agency, in a July 30 Instagram story, asked why there were not more statues honoring women historical figures, at the U.S. National Statuary Hall Collection. The collection includes statues honoring historical figures from all 50 states, which are chosen by the states and sent by them to Congress for display.
“Even when we select figures to tell the stories of colonized places, it is the colonizers and settlers whose stories are told — and virtually no one else,” the congresswoman posted, with a picture of Fr. Damien’s U.S. Capitol statue in the background.
In 1969, Hawaii chose to honor St. Damien (1840-1889) alongside Kamehameha I in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol.
Ocasio-Cortez noted that Hawaii’s statue was of Fr. Damien and not of “Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, the only Queen Regnant of Hawaii,” implying that it was an example of “colonizers” being honored instead of historical figures who are native to states, wrote Matt Hadro for CNA.
Following is the text of Bill Donohue’s letter:

August 3, 2020
Hon. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
229 Cannon HOB
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Rep. Ocasio-Cortez:

Without provocation, you recently exploded in a fit of rage when you condemned Fr. Damien, the 19th century priest who gave his life to serving lepers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Referring to a statue of him in the U.S. Capitol, you said, “This is what patriarchy and white supremacist culture looks like!”
Your remarks evince an offensive ethnocentrism. You disrespected the people of Hawaii: It is they who hold Fr. Damien in high regard. You should be careful not to judge a people’s culture and history through your own provincial lens.
Here is what the Britannica Online Encyclopedia says about Father Damien.
“Damien, known for his compassion, provided spiritual, physical, and emotional comfort to those suffering from the debilitating and incurable disease. He served as both pastor and physician to the [leper] colony and undertook many projects to better the conditions there. He improved water and food supplies and housing and founded two orphanages, receiving help from other priests for only 6 of his 16 years on Molokai.”
Even after Fr. Damien learned that he had contracted leprosy, he continued his charitable work. He died in 1889.
You expressed anger at the failure of the U.S. Capitol not to recognize a contemporary of Fr. Damien, Queen Liliuokalani. It is obvious that you know no more about the queen than the priest.
Queen Liliuokalani adored Fr. Damien, heralding his yeoman work. Indeed, she made the “white supremacist” a knight commander of the Royal Order of Kalakaua for his legendary work with lepers. In fact, as a public tribute to his efforts, she convinced government officials to build a hospital for lepers.
Your appalling ethnocentrism makes it impossible for you to appreciate why Fr. Damien is regarded as a hero by Hawaiians. That is why they made sure to have three statues of him: one in front of the State Capitol in downtown Honolulu; one in front of St. Joseph’s Church in Molokai; and one in National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C.
You need to apologize to the people of Hawaii for disrespecting their history and culture. You also need to apologize to Catholics for demonizing Fr. Damien (it matters not a whit that you identify as a Catholic — you have offended Catholics and that is all that counts).

Sincerely,

William A. Donohue, Ph.D.
President

Another View Of Damien

Possibly AOC forgot the comments of another Democrat officeholder — one who endorsed her shortly before the 2018 midterm election — about Fr. Damien. Here is the full text:

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release

October 9, 2009

Statement by the President on the Canonization of Blessed Damien de Veuster, ss.cc.:
“I wish to express my deep admiration for the life of Blessed Damien de Veuster, who will be canonized on Sunday by His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. I also want to convey my best wishes to the Kingdom of Belgium and its people, who are proud to count Fr. Damien among their great citizens.
“Fr. Damien has also earned a special place in the hearts of Hawaiians. I recall many stories from my youth about his tireless work there to care for those suffering from leprosy who had been cast out.
“Following in the steps of Jesus’ ministry to the lepers, Fr. Damien challenged the stigmatizing effects of disease, giving voice to the voiceless and ultimately sacrificing his own life to bring dignity to so many.
“In our own time as millions around the world suffer from disease, especially the pandemic of HIV/AIDS, we should draw on the example of Fr. Damien’s resolve in answering the urgent call to heal and care for the sick.
“I offer my prayers as people of all faiths join the Holy Father and millions of Catholics around the world in celebrating Fr. Damien’s extraordinary life and witness.”
President Barack Obama issued this statement two days before Damien was canonized. Obama’s declaration was widely reported in the media.
AOC lamely tried to defend herself in a tweet by saying, “At no point did I say Fr. Damien was a bad figure — in fact, I explicitly stated that my observations weren’t about litigating his or any individual statue. It’s about the fact that a huge supermajority of statues in the Capitol are white men. Barely any women or BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and People of Color].”
But Catholics and others aren’t defending Damien by saying what a good person he was — by all accounts, he could be short-tempered and obstinate. We’re saying he was a saint, admired by people of all colors and denominations because of his heroic virtue. AOC no doubt holds the popular view of a saint as someone who does a bunch of good deeds.
Someone who does understand is Robert Cardinal Sarah of Guinea, who describes Damien this way in his book God or Nothing:
“I am not forgetting the great saints whom God sent to die with the poor, such as Fr. Damien. After arriving May 10, 1873, in Molokai, in the Hawaiian Islands, St. Damien Jozef de Veuster volunteered to be God’s presence in the midst of the lepers whom no one wanted to visit. Damien knew perfectly well that he had no chance of returning alive from such an adventure.
“After ten years of mission work in the midst of those unfortunate creatures, who had been corralled, like livestock waiting for the slaughterhouse, he contracted leprosy, which began to gnaw away at him, and it inevitably destroyed him. Yet he had chosen to give his all to the dying of Molokai for the love of God. He celebrated his last Mass, completely exhausted by leprosy, on March 28, 1889, a few days before being carried off to the Father of all mercies.”
Damien didn’t merely perform some good deeds — he gave his life for those suffering from leprosy.
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.), MD tweeted: “A little research into the saint @AOC is trying to dunk on would yield his incredible devotion to those suffering from leprosy, which led to his canonization.”
A recommended source for that research is film director John Farrow’s classic biography of Fr. Damien, titled Damien the Leper (1937).
Novelist Hugh Walpole introduces Farrow’s book this way: “He shrinks from no detail of the physical horrors of the scene. He contrasts them very cleverly — the beautiful background of earth, and sea, and sky. But at the center, perhaps, is this unfailing truth that ‘He who loses his soul for my sake and the Gospels wins a great victory’. . . .
“Now that I have read this book I feel that I have Damien as a companion for the rest of my days. This is an addition to one’s spiritual experience, and I thank Mr. Farrow for it.”
Farrow — who had encountered leprosy victims in his travels through the South Seas — described Damien’s 1873 arrival at Molokai this way:
“It was hard to feel any kinship with the live things that crowded about him. They were without faces or if they had faces they were distorted beyond resemblance to any human shape. Where eyes had been there were craters of pus; and there were gaping cavities, disease-infected holes, that merged with rotting mouths, where noses should be. Ears were pendulous masses many times their natural size, or were shriveled to almost nothing. Hands were without fingers and some arms were merely stumps. Feet and legs were equally repulsive and the bodies of most of these wretched creatures were bloated and pitted, shrunken and swollen, but never of a normal shape. They were a pitiable, revolting sight; their wounds and sores being either entirely undressed or covered with filthy matter-soaked rags.”
Farrow also quotes Robert Louis Stevenson’s more poetic description of Kalaupapa, based on his 1889 visit there shortly after Damien’s death:
“. . . A pitiful place to visit and a hell to dwell in. . . . I am not a man more than usually timid, but I never recall the days and nights I spent upon that island promontory (eight days and seven nights) without heartfelt thankfulness that I am somewhere else. . . .
“Gorgons and chimeras dire . . . pantomime deformations of our common manhood. Such a population as only now and again surrounds us in the horrors of a nightmare.”
The National Park Service website summarizes the history of the leper settlement in these words:
“When Hansen’s disease (leprosy) was introduced to the Hawaiian Islands, King Kamehameha V banished all afflicted to the isolated Kalaupapa peninsula on the north shore of Molokai.
“Since 1866, more than 8,000 people, mostly Hawaiians, have died at Kalaupapa. Once a prison, Kalaupapa is now refuge for the few remaining residents who are now cured, but were forced to live their lives in isolation.”
The advent of antibiotics brought about the cures for the more recent residents of Kalaupapa.
Please note the above reference to “mostly Hawaiians” — served by Fr. Damien, who clearly bears no resemblance to a white supremacist. And he was hardly a “colonizer.” For whom? Belgium? And when would he have had the time!
No wonder the Hawaiian government chose him for the statuary hall. Even remotely linking Damien with colonizers or white supremacists is clearly insupportable.