Another saint out of Hawaii's Kalawao County

[oscar]

Earlier today, Pope Benedict elevated Mother Marianne Cope to the ranks of the Catholic saints.  Mother Marianne was most widely known for her work caring for Hawaiians exiled to the isolated Kalawao County (Kalaupapa Peninsula on the north coast of Molokai island) for what then was untreatable Hansen's Disease (a/k/a leprosy).  She carried on the work started by Father Damien, who himself was named a saint in 2009.

The news of particular interest to the county-counters among you, is that nine of the elderly Hansen's Disease patients who still reside in Kalawao County were well enough to travel to Rome for today's canonization ceremony.  Their continued residence in the county, and relative good health, make it unlikely that the county will be folded into Maui County anytime soon, for the reasons I explain in the Hawaii Highways FAQs.  So those of you who might've been waiting for Kalawao County to disappear, so you can avoid a trek to one of the more inaccessible counties in the United States (you can get there only by small plane, or a mule ride or a hike down a long cliffside trail), shouldn't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

[Duke87]

Depends on how you define "anytime soon". If the residents are all "elderly", I reasonably expect to outlive them all by a significant amount of time, even if it takes another 20 years for them to all die off.

Somehow I suspect a trip to Maui is not in the cards for me anytime before retirement, anyway, so...

[Scott5114]

I wonder if any other county in the US has as high of a ratio of saints per square mile as Kalawao County does...

[Duke87]

I wonder if any other county in the US has as high of a ratio of saints per square mile as Kalawao County does...

Orleans Parish, Louisiana?