Hawaian Boy Scouts to Attend Father Damien’s October Canonization

We have a vibrant Boy Scout troop here at Saint Benedict Center in Richmond, New Hampshire.  On our website I’ve posted two articles about two exemplary Catholic Eagle Scouts in which I promoted  Francis Parater and Charles Anthony Francis Untz as good candidates for a future Boy Scout patron saint.  It seems like every time I see  a news story about the Scouts it’s an inspiring one.  Never was a Scout myself, would’ve been a better man if I had been.  I’m adding this wonderful news to our Boy Scout folder.  God bless Scout Master John Fielding.

CNA reports:

Honolulu, Hawaii, Aug 26, 2009 / 10:34 pm (CNA).- Nine Boy Scouts and a Scout Master from Hawaii are traveling to the Vatican for the October 11 canonization of Bl. Damien de Veuster, the Belgian missionary who ministered to the Hawaiian leper colony at Molokai and died of leprosy there.

Scout Master John Fielding is organizing the nine scouts’ journey, which they will document via YouTube, Facebook and a blog. They will pass through Fr. Damien’s Belgian hometown before arriving at the Vatican.

Writing to CNA in a Tuesday e-mail, Fielding explained that when he first heard the canonization date for Fr. Damien had been set, he told his wife that it was sad another historic event in the Church’s history would go by “without involving the children (or as we say in Hawai’I, Keiki) of the Church.”

“Then I looked at her and said, ‘You know, why should we regret – we should just make it happen!’” he said.  Read more here.