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earing white lab coats and light blue 
gloves, Emma Rosales and Samantha 
Casarrubias tackled the tedious work 
of sifting through boxes of precious soil saved 
from a previous gravesite of Saint Marianne Cope.  
Their objective? Locate any and all remnants 
of the earthly remains of the beloved Hawaiian 
saint, who died in 1918.  
They conducted this meticulous search in a 
forensic science lab at Chaminade University of 
Honolulu, working under the close supervision 
of assistant professor and director of the Forensic 
Sciences Department at Chaminade Carlos  
Gutiérrez Ayala. They spent hours sifting through 
the soil this past January, and their effort paid off, 
finding at least eight relics from the saint. This 
is the first time the Catholic Church has called 
upon the university to assist in this manner. 
Saint Marianne, a Sister of St. Francis, traveled 
from her motherhouse in Syracuse, New York, 
to the Kingdom of Hawai‘i in the late 1800s to 
help build the kingdom’s medical infrastructure. 
She’s most famous for her work tending to the 
spiritual and medical needs of leprosy patients 
at Kalaupapa, on the Hawaiian island of Moloka‘i. 
“Getting to hear her story was very interesting,” 
Rosales said. “It really shed light on what we 
were actually doing.”  
Pope John Paul II beatified Sister Marianne 
in 2004, and she later was canonized in 2011 by 
Pope Benedict XVI. Her beatification and can­
onization prompted her earthly remains to be 
transferred from Moloka‘i to her motherhouse 
in Syracuse, then back to Hawai‘i again. Except 
for a bone fragment that remained at a museum 
and shrine in Syracuse, her mortal remains are 
enshrined at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady 
of Peace in Honolulu.  
The soil examined by the forensic students 
was from her original grave site. 
SAINTLY  
PURSUIT
Forensic students at Chaminade University  
seek tiny relics of Saint Marianne Cope 
 
By Jamie Forsythe
W
Walter Murray Gibson (left) with Sister Marianne Cope and other sisters at 
Kapiolani Home in Kakaako, Hawai'i, for daughters of Hansen’s disease patients.
IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK
PHOTO: WIKIPEDIA; PUBLIC DOMAIN

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