KALAUPAPA, Hawaii (AP) — Kalaupapa beckoned to Kyong Son Toyofuku. She had long prayed to visit the hard-to-reach Hawaiian peninsula, trapped by its deep-green, sheer sea cliffs and rugged, black rock shores that glisten under the Pacific’s pristine waters.As a daily Mass-going Catholic devoted to Saint Damien of Molokai, she wanted to walk where he walked, pray where he prayed, and witness for herself the place — both stunning and haunting — where the late priest spent a pivotal part of his life caring for banished people sick with leprosy.
The pilgrimage to Kalaupapa, defined by its natural isolation in northern Molokai, is logistically challenging to make under normal circumstances, with longstanding rules including prohibiting anyone younger than 16 from visiting. It is even more so today because of lingering COVID-19 pandemic restrictions that canceled all pilgrimages and tours of the national historical park to protect the peninsula’s eight remaining former patients. Park and state health department officials have been easing restrictions and are considering when to resume organized pilgrimages and tours.
For Toyofuku, a series of must-have permissions came together at the right moment this summer and her dream came true. At the invitation of Kalaupapa’s priest, she retraced Father Damien’s footsteps in a place where for more than a century nearly no one wanted to go — and many would never leave.
Just thinking about Damien’s devotion to the sick …
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The pilgrimage to Kalaupapa, defined by its natural isolation in northern Molokai, is logistically challenging to make under normal circumstances, with longstanding rules including prohibiting anyone younger than 16 from visiting. It is even more so today because of lingering COVID-19 pandemic restrictions that canceled all pilgrimages and tours of the national historical park to protect the peninsula’s eight remaining former patients. Park and state health department officials have been easing restrictions and are considering when to resume organized pilgrimages and tours.
For Toyofuku, a series of must-have permissions came together at the right moment this summer and her dream came true. At the invitation of Kalaupapa’s priest, she retraced Father Damien’s footsteps in a place where for more than a century nearly no one wanted to go — and many would never leave.
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