Sainthood for Blessed Damien, the "leper priest of Moloka'i," inched another step closer to fruition as an important Vatican delegation approved a document that attests to a miraculous cure of an 'Aiea woman's cancer.

The latest development makes it likely that Damien will become the first saint with Hawai'i ties.

The Congregation for the Causes of Saints signed a document last month approving the miracle of Audrey Toguchi of 'Aiea.

The miracle centers around her liposarcoma, an aggressive form of cancer she discovered in 1997, which doctors say was spontaneously cured.

She and the Catholic church have attributed the cure to the fact that she visited Damien's grave and asked friends and family to pray to Damien for his divine intercession.

Damien de Veuster was the Sacred Hearts priest who lived with Hansen's disease patients in Kalaupapa. He arrived at the desolate leper colony on Moloka'i and built a church, then helped bring hope to the settlement before he died there April 15, 1889, after contracting the disease himself.

The next step in his sainthood process is for the document to be accepted by the Vatican, but Honolulu's Bishop Larry Silva, as well as Sacred Hearts officials here and in Rome were unable to confirm whether the pope has signed — or even seen — the documents.

The Rev. Chris Keahi, provincial of the Sacred Hearts order here, said the next step will be a signature by the pope.

"Once he does that, all that's left is setting the date," he said, declining to give a prediction as to when that might be.

At Sacred Hearts headquarters in Rome, the Rev. Ed Popish, formerly of Honolulu, said the Congregation for the Causes of Saints was in the process of delivering the signed document to Pope Benedict XVI.

Damien will become a saint when he is officially canonized, but no one is certain when that might be. Only the pope can canonize someone as a saint.

"Once it gets into his hands, he has the option of calling for (canonization)," Popish said. "Or he could wait until the next consistory (leadership tribunal)."

He suggested that Pope Benedict might wait until the next consistory, presumably in February. "That would be the normal path," Popish said.