Missionary priest, born Tremeloo, Belgium, 1840; died Molokai, Hawaii, 1889. Member of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, he was sent to Hawaii where he became resident priest in the leper reserve at Molokai, and for years was the only person to minister to their spiritual and medical wants. Stricken with disease, 1885, he continued his work to the end. His name was attacked by a Presbyterian minister named Hyde, and brilliantly vindicated by Robert Louis Stevenson in a philippic entitled "Father Damien" (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1911). He was declared Venerable in 1977, and beatified on June 3, 1995.