Pope Benedict XVI will canonize Mother Marianne Cope on Oct. 21. In the late 1800s, she had helped to found health care ministries in New York and Hawaii, including St. Elizabeth Medical Center of Utica, N.Y.; St. Joseph's Hospital Health Center of Syracuse, N.Y.; and the predecessor of Honolulu-based St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii.
Born Barbara Koob in Germany in 1838, she emigrated with her family to the U.S. in 1839; they settled in Utica. (They Anglicized their last name to "Cope.") In the early 1860s, she professed her vows as a Sister of Saint Francis in Syracuse and took the name Marianne.
She helped to establish St. Elizabeth in 1866 and then St. Joseph three years later. In the 1870s, she concurrently served as superior of St. Joseph and assistant mother and secretary general of her congregation. In her capacity as hospital head, she supported innovations for the time: The facility served all people regardless of their nationality, religion or race; it cared for alcoholics and other people considered outcasts; and its clinicians adhered to a new policy on cleanliness that required frequent hand-washing.
In 1877, the Sisters of St. Francis elected her mother general of the congregation.
In 1883, Mother Cope was the only one of 50 religious leaders to respond to a request from Hawaii (then called the Sandwich Islands) to care for the sick — including those with leprosy. She and six other Sisters of St. Francis traveled to Honolulu and, in time, established a general hospital, took over another hospital, worked to improve the care of people with leprosy and established a home for the children of leprosy patients. When a change in government policy led to the exile of leprosy patients to the Kalaupapa peninsula on Hawaii's Molokai Island, Mother Cope relocated to that island and started up a home for leprosy patients and took charge of a boys' home there.
Mother Cope died in 1918. The Sisters of St. Francis outpost she had headed in Hawaii established St. Francis Hospital in 1927, which in time grew to be part of a health system that is still sponsored by that congregation.
For a person to be declared a saint, the Vatican's Congregation for the Causes of Saints must accept the case and name the person "venerable." Then, Vatican medical experts and theologians must confirm that the venerable person was responsible for a posthumous miracle. The pope then determines that the person is "blessed." If another miracle is attributed to that person after he or she is named blessed, the pope may canonize the candidate. Mother Cope was named venerable in 2004, and was named blessed in 2005. In December, the pope affirmed she would be canonized.
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