Mother Marianne Cope 

Blessed Marianne exemplified the vision of loving kindness for all those in need, most notably Hawaii’s victims of Hansen’s disease. 

Mother Marianne Cope (January 23, 1838 – August 9, 1918) was born in Heppenheim in the Grand Duchy of Hesse (Germany) and christened Barbara Koob.  When she was 3 years old, her family moved to the United States, settling in Utica, New York. She entered the religious community, the Sisters of the Third Franciscan Order of Syracuse, New York. 

Mother Marianne was a supervisor at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse when a letter made its way to her.  She was being asked by King David Kalakaua and church officials to journey across the United States to the Kingdom of Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to care for abandoned victims of leprosy (now known as Hansen’s disease).  More than 50 other religious communities had already turned down the plea for help.  This was unchartered territory, yet Mother Marianne and six other Sisters willingly volunteered for the mission.  They arrived on the Mariposa on November 8, 1883.  Soon after their arrival, they took on the task of managing the Kakaako Branch Hospital on Oahu.  In 1885, the Sisters founded Kapiolani Home to care for the daughters of Hansen’s disease patients.

She expanded the efforts of the Sisters to include managing a hospital and school in Wailuku, Maui.  In 1888, she went to Kalaupapa to help the ailing Father Damien DeVeuster of Molokai. When the famed priest died, Mother Marianne took over the care of the patients at Kalaupapa and managed Baldwin Home for boys.  Mother Marianne initially thought it would be a short trip, but she never returned to Syracuse and spent the remainder of her life at Kalaupapa. Throughout her ministry to the Hansen’s disease patients, she never contracted the disease and died in 1918 at the age of 80.  She was buried on the grounds of Kalaupapa until her body was exhumed in 2005.

On May 14, 2005, Mother Marianne was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in a ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, where she was bestowed the title of Blessed.  She is awaiting canonization into sainthood.