His Holiness Benedict XVI  Addresses Pilgrims at the Beatification on May 16, 2005 

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Most of the pilgrims who attended the beatification ceremony on Saturday, May 14th, 2005, met once again in the Audience Hall in Vatican City on Monday, May 16th.  Pope Benedict XVI clearly pleased the crowd by his attendance and his joyful appearance accepting the aloha spirit among so many of them.

The Holy Father received the first lei from Hawaii of his papacy with a big smile and enjoyed the crowd reaction of applause and chants of Papa-- Papa. In his address which was given partially in well spoken English, the Holy Father urged the exuberant crowd plainly awed by his presence to follow the path of Blessed Marianne to holiness. He pointed out the strength of her faith and the good works her faith inspired:  "All that she [Mother Marianne] achieved was inspired by her personal love of the Lord, which she in turn expressed through the love of those abandoned and rejected by society in a most wretched way." One can see by these words the Holy Father considers Blessed Marianne truly holy and that good works were part of the fruit of her holiness.                                                                              

Mother Marianne's cause has come to fruition.  It is right and just. One is reminded that at Kalaupapa, Molokai, one usually had the same confessor.  In the year 1909, Fr. Maxime Andre, SS.CC., was the pastor at St. Francis Church at the settlement and the confessor at Kalaupapa. Although there are so many strongly positive persons and documents testifying to Mother Marianne's holiness, it tells us more than most witnesses were able to do about the virtue of the dedicated woman of God when we read the words that this good priest writes to authorities of his own community regarding his own opinion of her sanctity. At the time he bemoans that she had been at the point of death for almost a year and the good news is that she has recovered. He reports that she does not want to leave her post and adds his appraisal of her as a human being, "C'est une sainte."  Three years later he speaks of her having another spell of sickness and that they have hopes for her recovery stating frankly that if she were not the head of Bishop Home "we would suffer a great loss."  She does recover and does go on. The one that Father Maxime readily recognized as a saint is now Blessed.  Prayerfully, one day she will be acknowledged officially as a Saint by the Roman Catholic Church and her motivating love of God and neighbor will become even better known.