The remains of a saint known for caring for exiled leprosy patients have been returned to Hawaii.
St. Marianne Cope's remains will arrive in a hearse Thursday at Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu for a ceremony and Mass.
She was 80 when died of natural causes in 1918 at the remote Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Molokai, where the Hawaiian kingdom exiled leprosy patients to control the disease. Her remains were exhumed from Kalaupapa in 2005 during her canonization process and taken to Syracuse, New York, where her religious congregation is based.
She gained sainthood in 2012.
In December 2011, NCR wrote a story about St. Marianne Cope's path to sainthood. The Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities have created a Saint Marianne Cope Shrine and Museum in Syracuse, N.Y.