Blessed Damien de Veuster (January 3, 1840 – April 15, 1889), born Jozef de Veuster and also known as Blessed Damien of Molokai (in Dutch, Damiaan), was a Roman Catholic priest from Belgium and member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, a missionary religious order. It was announced on July 3, 2008, that Damien is to be canonized by the Catholic Church in 2009 by authority of Pope Benedict XVI.

Father Damien is known for his ministering of people with what was then widely known as leprosy, who had been placed under a government-sanctioned medical quarantine, on the island of Molokai in the Kingdom of Hawaii. He eventually contracted the disease himself, and is widely considered a "martyr of charity". In the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions, as well as other denominations of Christianity, Damien is considered the spiritual patron for Hansen's Disease, HIV and AIDS patients as well as outcasts. As the patron saint of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu and of Hawaii, Father Damien Day is celebrated statewide on April 15. Upon his beatification by Pope John Paul II in Rome on June 4, 1995, Blessed Damien was granted a memorial feast day, which is celebrated on May 10.

 

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