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Rep. Ocasio-Cortez seems to have let the cat get her tongue over her insult to Hawaii's patron saint and most beloved figure, Father Damien of Molokai. That's the 19th century Belgian priest who came the islands, learned the Hawaiian language, lived like a pauper, and spent his life caring for people with leprosy on the island of Molokai, before catching the disease and dying of it himself. The native Hawaiians loved him and honored him with a statue alongside King Kamehameha I as their state emblems inside the capitol. Not an issue for the congresswoman, who singled Father Damien out...

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) singled out a statue of Father Damien, a Catholic priest who ministered to a Hawaiian leper colony, as an example of “white supremacist culture.” Father Damien, born Jozef de Veuster in Belgium, arrived in Hawaii in 1864 when the islands were an independent kingdom. The priest conducted missionary work on the islands and for the last 16 years of his life ministered to a leper colony, until he died after contracting leprosy himself. A statue of Father Damien stands in the U.S. Capitol. “It’s not Queen Lili’uokalani…the only Queen Regnant of Hawaii, who is immortalized...

The Bible contains several accounts of Jesus dealing with lepers, but these historical narratives might not be telling us the full story, some scholars are now claiming. "Rather than healing and cleansing the lepers, it seems Jesus actually just gave them an air high five and said, 'Stay home, save lives' before moving on so as not to get infected," said Dr. Robert Belling, Dean of Doubt Formation at Yale Divinity School. "It was the smart thing to do. It's how Jesus loved His neighbor. And may we all live by His example by not ever going back to work...

Israel experts said on Wednesday that a burial shroud known as the Turin shroud, assumed to be the type used to wrap the body of Jesus, did not actually originate from Jesus-era Jerusalem. The conclusion was based on excavation discoveries of a first-century C.E. shrouded man found in a tomb on the edge of the Old City of Jerusalem, which also revealed the earliest proven case of leprosy. Along with the DNA of the shrouded man, this was the first time that fragments of a burial shroud have been found from the time of Jesus in Jerusalem, which, unlike the...

Vatican City, Oct 11, 2009 / 10:45 am (CNA).- Today, Pope Benedict XVI canonized five new saints in St. PeterÂ’s Basilica, including Fr. Damian of Molokai. During his homily, the Holy Father noted that all of the saints followed the invitation of Christ: "Come, follow me!"Speaking to the faithful packed in St. PeterÂ’s Basilica this morning, the Pope described the invitation of Christ saying that he "invites his disciples to the total gift of their lives, without calculation and human self-interest, with a wholehearted faith in God." This call, the Holy Father continued, is welcome by the saints who...

RedState is pleased to announce it is engaging in a special project: Operation Leper. We're tracking down all the people from the McCain campaign now whispering smears against Governor Palin to Carl Cameron and others. Michelle Malkin has the details. We intend to constantly remind the base about these people, monitor who they are working for, and, when 2012 rolls around, see which candidates hire them. Naturally then, you'll see us go to war against those candidates. It is our expressed intention to make these few people political lepers.They'll just have to be stuck at CBS with Katie's failed ratings....

JERUSALEM (AP) -- An Israeli archaeologist has found what he says are the oldest remains of a leprosy victim to be uncovered in the Middle East, buried in a biblical valley whose name became a synonym for Hell. Shimon Gibson of Jerusalem's Albright Institute of Archaeological Research discovered the 2,000-year-old remains of a man in a niche in a family burial cave in the city's Hinnom Valley. Gibson said that until now the oldest archaeological findings of leprosy, known in medical terms as Hansen's Disease, were from the Byzantine period, around the fifth century A.D. "As this is from the...