Petrus Norbert Donders was a DutchRoman Catholic priest and a professed member from the Redemptorists. He served in the missions in Suriname where he tended to the native inhabitants and the lepers; he worked in both Paramaribo and Batavia where he died. Donders' poverty during his youth saw him unable to begin his studies for the priesthood. Later generous benefactors helped to enable him to complete his studies. Right after ordination he was sent to Suriname to tend to the natives there and he was never to return to his native land. Donders was beatified in mid-1982 in Saint Peter's Square. The miracle that led to that was the cure of a Dutch child from bone cancer back in 1929.
Life
Petrus Norbert Donders was born in Tilburg in the Netherlands on 27 October 1809 as the eldest of two children to Arnold Denis and Petronella van den Brekel Donders; he had a younger brother named Martin. In Tilburger he was known as Peerke Donders; he taught catechism to his fellow children during his spare time. He desired from childhood to become a priest but could not afford to attend school for very long. He worked in the warehouse with his little brother Martin. He afterwards became a servant among seminarians at their institute known as the Beekvliet in Sint Michiels Gestel where he was given some education. In 1831 he was deemed unfit for military service. In 1833 he applied to join the Redemptorists but was denied; he met the same results from the Jesuits and Franciscans. Later a benefactor enabled him to pursue his theological studies at the College of Haaren which he entered on 4 October 1837. A chance reading of the "Annals of the Propagation of the Faith" - a journal of reports from various missions - established his interest in the foreign missions. In 1839, impressed with Donders' zeal and passion, Bishop Jacobus Grooff accepted him for the then Dutch Suriname. Donders was ordained to the priesthood on 5 June 1841. On 1 August 1842 he traveled to Paramaribo to begin his long apostolic career and he arrived there on 16 September 1842. He laboured with success among the African peoples in the plantations and by 1850 had instructed and baptized 1200 people. His letters express his indignation at the harsh treatment of the African peoples forced to work on the plantations. He extended his work to the Indians at Saramacca and in 1851 tended to the sick during an epidemic. In 1856 he took up his residence in Batavia where for almost three decades he tended to 600 lepers until he was able to persuade the authorities to provide adequate nursing services. In 1865 the colony was assigned to the Redemptorists by the Holy See. Donders asked to join their order and was received at Paramaribo in 1866 by Monsignor Johannes Baptist Swinkels, the first Redemptorist vicar Apostolic. He was vested in the habit on 1 November 1886, and made his final vows on 24 June 1867. Following this he returned to his charges and studied music to cheer the afflicted children. He had been given an assistant but laboured through all his work until his death from nephritis on 14 January 1887 ; his superiors noted his frail constitution and moved him to easier assignments though Donders moved back to Batavia when he sensed his end was near to be with his patients. He was buried in Batavia but was relocated on 28 July 1900 in the Saint Peter and Paul Cathedral at Paramaribo which was consecrated in 1885 before his death. His remains were reinterred in the same cathedral in another location on 17 January 1921. Donders' birth house in Tilburg was reconstructed in 1930 on the old foundations and a well is also there.
Beatification
The beatification process opened in the 's-Hertogensboch diocese in 1900 in an informative process that later concluded in 1903 while the formal introduction to the cause came under Pope Pius X on 14 May 1913 who titled the late priest as a Servant of God. The apostolic process opened on 8 January 1916 and concluded sometime later before the Congregation for Rites approved both process with a decree of validation on 16 July 1938. On 25 March 1945 he became titled as Venerable after Pope Pius XII confirmed that Donders had lived a life of heroic virtue. The miracle that led to his beatification involved the cure of the child Ludovicus Johann Westland on 12 September 1929 from bone cancer; this process spanned from 5 October 1931 to 3 February 1932 before the Congregation for the Causes of Saints later validated the process on 3 November 1973. Medical experts approved this on 22 December 1975 while exemption was granted on 5 August 1976 for a second miracle that would have otherwise been needed for Donders to be beatified under the old rules that were still in force regarding sainthood causes. The C.C.S. officials and their consultants also approved this on 11 April 1978 as did the cardinal and bishop members of the C.C.S. alone on 23 May 1978. Donders was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 23 May 1982. The current postulator for this cause is the Redemptorist priest Antonio Marrazzo.
