Father Joseph Damien de Veuster has been a storm center of controversy in Hawaii for the better part of a century. A Belgian-born Roman Catholic priest seeking converts, he was greeted with hostility by Hawaii's ruling Protestant-missionary families from the moment he arrived in Honolulu in 1864. He eventually volunteered to serve the leper colony on Molokai, became a beloved, if eccentric figure there; he wore a flowered native dress under his cape, tied up the brim of his battered clerical hat with string. At the age of 49, he died of leprosy, or Hansen's disease.
So widespread became his fame after...
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