From the desk of the Tar Heel disciple:
January 27, 2026 (#70)
A German-American Saint
St. Marianne Cope, 1889, at the funeral bier of St. Damien of Moloka’i
Barbara Koob (later changed to “Cope”) was born on January 23, 1838, in Heppenheim, Hesse (Germany). The following year, her family emigrated to the United States, settling in Utica, New York, and later becoming naturalized American citizens. While in the eighth grade, her father became disabled, and she left school in order to support the family with a job at a local textile factory. After her father's death in 1862, she entered the novitiate of the Sisters of the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis in Syracuse, New York, where she was given a “religious name,” Marianne. After some years in teaching and serving as a school principal, she was appointed by the community to be the director of St. Joseph Hospital in Syracuse (1870-1877). In 1883, while serving as the Superior General of her congregation, Mother Marianne received a plea for help from the King of Hawaii to serve those suffering from leprosy on those islands. Over 50 other religious communities had declined the invitation. But Sr. Marianne volunteered to be among the first group of seven Sisters of St. Francis to embark on that mission that same year.
After serving at several different locations in the kingdom, in November 1888, the Franciscan Sisters moved to Moloka’I, where they established a home for women and girls with leprosy. They also cared for Father Damien, who had contracted the disease, and who died on April 15, 1889. (He had established a home for leprous men and boys on the island in 1879.) Mother Marianne continued her work there until her death (by natural causes) on August 9, 1918. She was both beatified (in 2005) and canonized (in 2012) by Pope Benedict XVI. Her remains are enshrined in the cathedral church of the Diocese of Honolulu, and her feast day is celebrated (as an optional memorial in the United States) on January 23.
For a children’s book on America Saints, including St. Marianne Cope, see:
https://inhisname.com/search?options%5Bprefix%5D=last&q=st+marianne+cope
