DAMIEN, FATHER, the name in religion of JOSEPH DE VEUSTER (1840-1389), Belgian missionary, born at Tremeloo, near Louvain, on Jan. 3, 1840. In 1858, he joined the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Congregation), and while still in minor orders, in 1863 went as a missionary to the Pacific islands, taking the place of his brother, who had been prevented by illness. On reaching Honolulu he was ordained priest in 1864. Struck with the sad condition of the lepers, whom the Hawaiian Government deported to Molokai island, in 1873 he volunteered to take spiritual charge of the settle ment. Besides attending to the spiritual needs of the lepers, he managed, by the labour of his own hands and by appeals to the Hawaiian Government, to improve the water-supply, the dwellings, and the victualling of the settlement, and after five years received assistance from other resident priests. He succumbed to leprosy on April 15, 1889. Some ill-considered imputations upon Father Damien by a Presbyterian minister produced a memorable tract by Robert Louis Stevenson (An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr. Hyde, 189o).
See Life and Letters of Fr. Damien, ed. by his brother, Fr. Pamphile (London, 1889) and M. Quinlan, Damien of Molokai (London, 1999), which reproduces Stevenson's letter.