Blessed Marianne Cope: Have You Heard of Her?

October 20, 2011 By 2 Comments

Reverend Sister Marianne
Matron of the Bishop Home, Kalaupapa

To see the infinite pity of this place,
The mangled limb, the devastated face,
The innocent sufferers smiling at the rod,
A fool were tempted to deny his God.

He sees, and shrinks; but if he look again,
Lo, beauty springing from the breast of pain!—
He marks the sisters on the painful shores,
And even a fool is silent and adores.

Robert Louis Stevenson
Kalawao, May 22, 1889

On November 16-18, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will convene in Baltimore for their Fall General Assembly.  Among items for discussion this year, the bishops will consider whether to add the memorials of Blessed John Paul II (on October 22) and Blessed Marianne Cope (on January 23) to the U.S. liturgical calendar.

“Uh-oh,” I think, looking at the new Chapel Edition of the Roman Missal sitting on my desk.  The new translation of the liturgy won’t be implemented until November—but already the book needs revision, because these memorials are not included.  This is proof positive that our Church is a living, breathing entity:  Just as God welcomes new saints into His Kingdom, so the Church welcomes the saints’ insights, their example, the inspiration they have left us, and continues to embrace their memory, to draw upon their wisdom and to honor their contributions to the faith.

But here’s my question:  Everyone knows of Pope John Paul II, right?  But do you know anything at all about Marianne Cope?  Here is her story.

* * * * *

Maria Anna Barbara Koob was born January 23, 1838 in Heppenheim in the Grand Duchy of Hesse (modern-day Germany).  When she was just a year old, her family emigrated to the United States—settling in the farming community of Utica, New York.

From early childhood Maria Anna was attracted to religious life.  Attending school at the Parish of St. Joseph, she admired the sisters who had devoted their lives to Christ.  However, her vocation was to be delayed:  Her father became an invalid when Maria Anna was in eighth grade, and she went to work in a factory to help support her family.  At age 24, when her younger siblings were old enough to assume responsibility for the family and after her father had died, Maria Anna entered the Sisters of the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis, based in Syracuse, New York.

After one year in the novitiate, Maria Anna received the habit of the Franciscan sisters and with it, her new name:  Sister Marianne.  She became a schoolteacher, then a principal, at newly established schools for German-speaking immigrants in the region.

By the 1860s, Sister Marianne had been elected to the Governing Council of her religious order; and in that role, she was instrumental in opening two new hospitals in Central New York.  She was appointed by the Superior General to direct St. Joseph’s Hospital, the first public hospital in Syracuse, and she served in that role from 1870-1877.

Unlike other hospitals of the time, the Franciscan hospitals stipulated in their Charter that medical care was to be provided to all, regardless of race or creed.  She helped to further patients’ rights, insisting in a letter of negotiations with the Medical College at Syracuse University that it was the right of the patient in each and every case to decide whether or not he or she wished to be brought before medical students.  Sister Marianne was often criticized for accepting into treatment “outcast” patients such as alcoholics, who were spurned by hospitals at the time; but she was well-known and loved among New Yorkers for her kindness, wisdom and down-to-earth practicality.

In 1883, Mother Marianne—by that time the Provincial Mother in Syracuse—received a letter from a Catholic priest asking for help managing hospitals and schools in the Hawaiian Islands, mainly caring for leprosy patients.  She responded enthusiastically, writing,

“I am hungry for the work and I wish with all my heart to be one of the chosen ones, whose privilege it will be to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the souls of the poor Islanders…. I am not afraid of any disease; hence, it would be my greatest delight even to minister to the abandoned ‘lepers’.”

With six other Sisters of St. Francis, Mother Marianne arrived at Honolulu in November 1883.  The sisters would manage and serve at the Kaka’ako Branch Hospital on Oahu, a receiving station where Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patients from throughout the Hawaiian Islands were sent to prevent further spread of the disease.  Within two years, the sisters had cleaned the hospital and treated the 200 patients, making major improvements in living conditions; and in 1905 they founded the Kapi’olani Home, a residence for the daughters of leprosy patients, within the walls of the hospital compound.  Fear of the disease had made public officials unwilling to care for the close relatives of those afflicted by the disease; only the sisters would welcome them and offer the home and education that these girls needed.

In January 1884, Mother Marianne met Fr. Damien de Veuster, who would become known as the “apostle to the lepers.”  Two years later, after Father Damien had been diagnosed with Hansen’s disease, the Church and the Government were afraid to welcome him; only Mother Marianne offered hospitality, after hearing that his condition had made him an outcast.  In 1888, in the last months of Father Damien’s life, Mother Marianne became his caretaker—promising him that she would continue to care for the patients at the Boys’ Home at Kalawao which he had founded.

After Father Damien’s death Mother Marianne, with Sr. Leopoldina Burns and Sr. Vincentia McCormick, cared for 103 girls at the Bishop Home for Girls, and operated the Home for Boys.  Her cheerful countenance was an encouragement to the children and to the religious sisters in her order.  Never fearful that she would contract leprosy herself, she said,

“God giveth life; He will take it away in His own good time. Meanwhile it is our duty to make life as pleasant and as comfortable as possible for those of our fellow-creatures whom He has chosen to afflict.”

Mother Marianne Cope, O.S.F., never contracted leprosy.  She and her sisters were honored in the poem (above) written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1889.  She died of natural causes on August 19, 1918, and was buried at the Bishop Home.

On April 19, 2004, Pope John Paul II issued the decree officially naming her Venerable.  She was among the first group of people to be beatified by Pope Benedict XVI, and is now often referred to as Blessed Marianne of Molokaʻi.

Her feast day (January 23) is celebrated by her Congregation, as well as by the Diocese of Honolulu and the Diocese of Syracuse.  Should the U.S. Bishops, at their November meeting, vote to approve her memorial for the whole church in the United States, that day will become a day of celebration and commemoration for all American Catholics.

Filed Under: Catholic, Character, Poetry, Saints, Women Tagged With: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

AIN’T I A WOMAN? Sojourner Truth, and the Liberation of America’s Smallest Women

March 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

On March 8, feminists observed the centenary of International Women’s Day—a day when we remember the struggles of women in the fight against gender discrimination, and celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.

 I would like to dedicate this post to the smallest of women:  those who have not yet seen the light of day, but for whom Jesus also died.   These smallest women, still unborn, have been generated in the heart of God, and have been a part of His perfect plan from the moment of creation.

*     *     *     *     *

In the early 1960s, when the National Organization of Women was just gathering steam and abortion was still illegal in America, being a feminist was a good thing.  Those were the years when discrimination was real and often severe.  Letter carriers were called “mailmen,” police officers were “policemen,” because those government positions were not available to women.  Employment policies decreed that women could not hold certain management-level positions; that women would train men, who would then become their bosses, but that women could not be considered for advancement; that pregnant women would be required to resign by the seventh month of gestation.  Many women did not drive automobiles.  Few worked outside the home.

 But change was coming.  Gloria Steinem, founder of Ms. magazine, popularized the witticism “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.”  New York’s Bella Abzug led the way for women into the halls of Congress and co-founded the National Women’s Political Caucus.  “Equal pay for equal work” became the mantra of the1960s gender feminists.

 Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Eleanor Smeal and other prominent feminists in the ‘60s and early ‘70s decried the fact that a woman was only considered “valuable” to the extent that she was wanted by a man—either her father or her husband.  “No,” the feminists rightly exclaimed, “EVERY woman has an inherent dignity, regardless of her marital status.”

 The innate value of all women was a battle cry for the women’s movement at its offset.  How ironic, then—how unthinkable—that only a few years later they should abandon that line of reasoning for the convenience of the “women’s rights” movement, hitching their wagon to “a woman’s right to choose.” 

 For just as a woman is invaluable because she has been created by God, so, too, is the unborn child—the fetus or, before that, the embryo—precious, because God has crafted it in His likeness, has imbued it with life, has granted it a dignity which remains, regardless whether or not it was “chosen” and is desired by its mother.

 *     *     *     *     *

 One of the classic defenses of the value of the human person in America is a speech delivered in 1851 by a former slave, Sojourner Truth.  She was speaking at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, as women were clamoring for equal rights. 

In honor of Sojourner Truth, and of all persons whom God has created, I reprint her remarks in their entirety.

AIN’T I A WOMAN?

By Sojourner Truth

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter.  I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon.  But what’s all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere.  Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place!  And ain’t I a woman?  Look at me!  Look at my arm!  I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me!  And ain’t I a woman?  I have borne thirteen children, and seen most sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me!  And ain’t I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it?  [member of audience whispers, “intellect”] That’s it, honey.  What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ rights?  If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

 Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman!  Where did your Christ come from?  From God and a woman!  Man had nothing to do with Him.

 If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!  And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

 Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.

Filed Under: Feminism, Women Tagged With: , , , Leave a Comment
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