St. Francis Medical Center's recently renovated chapel will be renamed after Mother Marianne Cope — known as Blessed Marianne since her beatification last year.

Dedication of the Mother Marianne Cope Chapel will be Aug. 9; the 2,500-square-foot chapel was formerly known as Our Lady of Guadalupe Chapel. The ceremony will begin with a 10 a.m. Mass said by the Rev. Marc Alexander, diocesan vicar general.

After arriving in the Islands in 1883 and spending the following three decades caring for the ill here, Cope — like Blessed Father Damien, Hawai'i's other notable Roman Catholic figure on the way to sainthood — made her way to Kalaupapa, where Hansen's disease patients were being isolated. There, Cope supervised homes for girls as well as for boys; she also had opened a home for children of Hansen's disease patients on O'ahu and a hospital on Maui. Cope died in 1918.

In 2005, Mother Marianne was beatified, the last formal step before sainthood.

Chapel renovation work for the 2,500-square-foot chapel ranged from new carpet and paint to refinished pews. Flooring was replaced, as well.

Information: 547-6421.

EXPERT TO SPEAK ON END OF LIFE

Hospice expert William Colby will discuss ethics and end of life issues in two public forums, on O'ahu and the Big Island.

Colby, a senior fellow of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, wrote "Long Goodbye: The Deaths of Nancy Cruzan" and "Unplugged: Reclaiming Our Right to Die in America."

Details of the free forums, "From Cruzan to Schiavo: What Have We Learned?":