When Holly Lenart of Pierpont, Ohio, decided on a pilgrimage to Moloka'i, her first stop when she got off the ferry was to pray to Father Damien at St. Sophia Church, a tiny, termite-damaged chapel in Kaunakakai.

The old wooden plantation-style church is often the first stop for pilgrims seeking to connect with Damien, who ministered to those banished to an isolated peninsula on Moloka'i because they suffered from Hansen's disease.

But parishioners in Kaunakakai want to build a more inviting sanctuary for visitors and themselves, especially because recent events at the Vatican make it a virtual certainty that Damien will be elevated to sainthood for his work at Kalawao and the miracles attributed to him.

With recent layoffs on Moloka'i, gasoline on the island at $5.12 a gallon and a struggling economy across the state and nation, advocates say the new church can meet both the spiritual and some of the economic needs of the island as well as provide a unifying energy that could help the community weather the downturn and thrive beyond it.

But to proceed, the Blessed Damien Catholic Parish needs help with what has thus far been a 12-year quest to raise $3 million. The money will be used to replace St. Sophia Church with a new house of worship that will be named for Damien.

Some $1.3 million has been raised and $200,000 more is needed to reach the halfway point, at which time they can borrow the remaining money from the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu, said Maria Sullivan, fundraiser chairwoman for the Damien Church. A gala fundraiser is planned for Aug. 16 on O'ahu.

DAMIEN'S DEEDS

Damien improved the quality of life for the outcasts, eventually providing houses, a church, an orphanage and a hospital in the late 1800s.

Pilgrims already come to the island to walk in Damien's footsteps and gain inspiration from his life's work.

And many more would be expected upon formal canonization of Damien by Pope Benedict XVI in Rome. A date for the canonization has not been set.

The new church would serve as a place to tell Damien's story and attract the kind of visitors Moloka'i residents want, Sullivan said.

She said she doubted there would be hordes of people overwhelming the island because Damien isn't well known, and the people that come would have low impact.

"They're on a spiritual journey, which is very much like the people here," she said. "It's difficult to live here, but they live here because it's a spiritual place. Those pilgrims are not out there on Jet Skis and parasailing. They're here to pray."

And while he is well known for his work at Kalawao — about a mile away from Kalaupapa — few know that Damien also helped people living above the peninsula, building four churches for them.

"We need a bigger space and we need a space to tell Father Damien's story," Sullivan said. "Frankly, God deserves a decent place and the people on this island deserve a decent place to pray."

Lenart, the Ohio pilgrim, said she hardly noticed the condition of the church but recognizes the importance of having a place where people can attend Mass and find the comfort and strength they need to face their challenges, just as Damien did.

"It was the Mass where he received his strength to live with the loneliness," Lenart said, in a telephone interview from Ohio. "Father Damien would be pleased to see a nice big church where we can go to receive everything he himself needed to do his mission: consolation, strength, perseverance."

ROOM TO EXPAND

St. Sophia seats 150 but the new church will accommodate 250, with flexibility to add chairs for up to 400 people, said Father Clyde Guerreiro, St. Sophia's priest.

The goal is to reach the $1.5 million point and borrow the remaining money by the end of the year, start building by the summer of 2010 and have the first service in the new church on Christmas Eve 2011, Guerreiro said.

Guerreiro belongs to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, of which Damien was also a member. Guerreiro led the rebuilding of churches on Kaua'i after Hurricane Iniki in 1992.

After 30 years' absence, the Sacred Hearts order returned to Moloka'i last year to help build the Damien church and to establish a missionary presence, including brothers and sisters of the Sacred Hearts, he said.

Guerreiro said he recognizes that people have varying opinions about the future of Moloka'i, and he sees the Damien church as a way of bringing people together.

"Father Damien is not just for Catholics," Guerreiro said. "Father Damien is for all people. So I'd like to approach the other churches, see if we can be some kind of catalyst for unity on the island."