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"Father Damien's story is a story of the triumph of the human spirit. Like Mother Theresa and
Mahatma Gandhi, Father Damien dealt with life and death one practical moment at a time and, in so doing,
conquered where there was no hope of conquest, inspired where there seemed to be nothing but
despair. Against all odds, he not only overcame the depravity of the tyranny that had been
created by the strong [described by Robert Louis Stevenson as a 'living hell' -- forcing young
girls into prostitution, robbing food from the sick and the young, putting the weaker into virtual
slavery], but he brought a sense of moral dignity to people who felt they had been abandoned
by family, society and God. Though set at the turn of the century, his story speaks to our times
and to all times where men lose their way in the face of the seemingly indomitable passions of
greed and fear and selfishness." --From the Synopsis of the Movie, Vine International Pictures
"This book tells how a young Catholic priest (1840-1889) chose to live on the island of Molokai
in Hawaii to serve the exiled lepers there. Arriving in 1864, Father Damien lived out his vows of
poverty, chastity, and obedience by identifying himself with the people he served. He would typically
say, "We, lepers..." and he did in fact contract the disease, dying of leprosy at age 49. It is a
touching story of a life that was admirable and sometimes controversial. Many people felt they
could never love God and fellow humans as wholeheartedly as Father Damien did. Others found him
egotistical, contrary, and even immoral. Problems of all sorts assaulted the man and his efforts
to provide care to a sick and dying population on Molokai. There were severe storms that destroyed
the building and chapels he had erected; unremitting conflicts with doctors, co-workers, and
superiors in government and religious circles; money problems, lack of support, the inability of
Fr. Damien to regularly make his own confessions; loneliness; and finally the fatal disease of
leprosy. Despite these difficulties, the story is one of triumph as the love and faith of Father
Damien shine through." --Lydia Samatar in
Provident BookFinder, August-September 2000
"Molokai: The Story of Father Damien by Hilde Eynikel is the biography of Damien De
Veuster, the Belgian priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary who became
the spiritual father and social advocate of the lepers exiled on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.
Lesley Gilbert's translation from the author's original dutch and Eynikel's scholarship make this
book factual, lively, and entertaining." --Clare Boehmer, ASC
in Review for Religious, July-August 2000
"On May 7, 1984, Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote to Pope John Paul II about the lepers her
sisters were nursing in India, Yemen, Ethiopia and Tanzania: 'In order to continue this beautiful
work of love and healing, we need a saint to lead and protect us. Father Damien can be this saint.
Holy Father, our lepers and everyone on earth beg you to give us a saint, a martyr to love, an
example of obedience to our religion.' From the beginning to end the Belgian priest who gave
himself for Hawaii's lepers was one of us; Eynikel is generous with details definitively documenting
as much. She is deft, humorous, always the realist. She tells, for example, how, on one of his
first assignments in Hawaii, Damien 'made an impression on the indigenous population by his
hardiness and his willingness to share some aspects of their way of life. He was always in the
saddle, visiting the communities in his district. One day, a Hawaiian asked him where his house
was. Damien pointed to his horse.' Before long, he was sharing more aspects of their life--the
pipe passed around the circle for each man to draw on, the food taken from the common bowl with
one's fingers--but not without anguish. Damien's introduction to leprosy was brutal. As he
walked into the new Catholic chapel at Kalaupapa, a place of banishment for lepers on the island
of Molokai, 'the building was full and it was boiling hot. Damien was confronted with all the
physical unpleasantness of leprosy. There were too many people with suppurating sores, so that
there was a stench of rotting flesh. Moreover, one of the symptoms of leprosy is that the
sufferer salivates excessively. The people were constantly coughing, clearing their throats and
spitting on the ground. Damien had to turn away in order not to be sick. He went to the open
window, but the building was surrounded by ill people who had not been able to get into the
church.' Foul as was the physical shock of leprosy, he found the spiritual leprosy on Molokai far
more daunting. It was simply the leprosy of the human condition, overrun with vice. Eynikel
reports it all honestly, with a kind of clinical detachment. It was what greets us every morning
with deadly familiarity--the human smut and smear of our world. Damien accepted the daily fare of
anger, envy, resentment, ambition and the calumny that tore his good name to ribbons. This, while
he struggles to learn the new dialects, build houses and churches, fend off incursions of the
disease, visit the sick, write letters pleading for assistance, and tangle with government and
Church authorities--all the while fighting his own losing battle with leprosy, contracted from
the people he gave himself to. On June 4, 1994--Pentecost--John Paul II beatified Damien.
And shortly after the publication of the book last December, the Pope authorized the annual
celebration of Blessed Damien's feast in the United States. It will rank as an optional memorial
and be observed on April 15. Coincidence? Perhaps, but one we can hail as a godsend--literally.
We need Father Damien. --Sr. Mary Thomas Noble, O.P. in the
National Catholic Register, October 8-14, 2000
"It's true what they teach in freshman English. There really are just three sorts of stories:
man against man, man against nature and man against himself. And the makers of the film "Molokai:
The Story of Father Damien" [based on the book by Hilde Eynikel] have told the right one. The
predictable modern tendency would be to make a movie about the man who gave his life ministering
to lepers in Hawaii into a tale of a medical man fighting against a terrible disease -- something
like 1993's "And the Band Played On." Or, even more likely, into the story of a man fighting
heartless superiors and an insensitive society for the rights of the sick, like the Oscar-winning
"Philadelphia" (also 1993). But neither of those was the miracle of Molokai, the isolated leper
colony where Father Damien de Veuster, a Belgian priest, went voluntarily in 1873 at the age of
33. Father Damien improved living conditions there, but he cured on one; he touched them, and they
were not healed. But there's the miracle: He touched them. This is the story of a man of God dying
to himself, putting aside his all-too-human aversion to a horrible, wasting disease, and seeing
Christ in the ruined faces and bodies of his chosen parishioners. It was for this that he was
beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1995.... Before he arrived, Father Damien was instructed by his
superiors not to touch the patients, and only to eat what he himself prepared. Within weeks, he
realized he couldn't minister to this flock that way -- he returned to Honolulu to get permission
to risk contagion. The inner struggle this required is what the film so vividly portrays. The most
powerful scene comes when Father Damien enters "The Mad House," a den for desperate drunkenness
and carousing. He has gone there because a mother tells him the gangs have taken her young daughter
there. Father Damien confronts the gangs, but they jeer at him. Two men pick up a rotting, limbless,
nearly faceless crone and laugh as she plants a kiss on the priest. The laughter ceases when Father
Damien takes the old woman into his arms and kisses her in blessing and comfort. Father Damien
contracted the disease, as he knew he would before he began bandaging his flock's open wounds and
sharing their meals. On the world's terms, there's no happy ending to this film, which deserves
to be a Catholic classic. But the film doesn't try to tell the story on the world's terms.
Instead, it shows that the real miracle -- and the real happy ending -- occurred when a man of
God looked at his congregation and said, long before he was sick, "my fellow lepers."
--Our Sunday Visitor, June 18, 2000
"Solid, factual biography of Blessed Damien de Veuster now in English translation (from the
original Dutch). Title: Molokai, The Story of Father Damien, by Belgian journalist and
historian, Hilde Eynikel; English translation by Leslie Gilbert. With access to
archives of the Picpus Fathers in Louvain, the author has produced a full length contemporary
biography, letting the facts of Fr. Damien's life and work speak for themselves. The 336 page
book, in 21 chapters, deals with the exhausting realities of missionary life in the 19th century
(for Protestants as well as Catholics), the complexity of pastoral ministry, the challenges of
culture and politics. At the heart of the book: Glimpses of Fr. Damien's vibrant faith, even in
the darkness of personal illness and frequent betrayal (referencing Fr. Damien's correspondence,
both personal and professional). With historical photos. No index." --Crux
of the News, November 15, 1999
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Hilde Eynikel, a former war correspondent and prominent Belgian
journalist and historian, has authored many books and is well-known in Europe as a regular guest on
radio and TV. She collaborated in the making of the motion picture based on her book starring David
Wenham, Peter O'Toole, Kris Kristofferson, Sir Derek Jacobi, Sam Neill, Tom Wilkinson, Leo McKern,
Alice Krige
and many others. After having written an
initial best-seller on the life of Damien de Veuster, she was given unprecedented
access to the as yet undisclosed archives kept in a concrete vault in the basement of the Picpus
Fathers (Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary) in Louvain, Belgium for this second, definitive biography. The Catholic University of Louvain granted her a Ph.D. "magna
cum laude" for her exceptional work. She is also the recipient of the Monsignor Declercq prize of the
Belgian Academy of Arts, Literature and Science for the best religious book of 1998.