ROME (AP) – The French doctor who discovered the genetic basis of Down syndrome, but who spent his career supporting abortion as a result of prenatal diagnosis, took his first major step towards a possible sanctity.
Pope Francis on Thursday approved the “heroic virtues” of Dr. Jerome Lejeune, who lived between 1926 and 1994 and was especially appreciated by St. John Paul II for his anti-abortion stance.
The papal recognition of Lejeune’s virtues means that he is considered “venerable” by the Catholic Church. The Vatican must now confirm a miracle attributed to his intercession for him to be beatified, and a second one for him to be declared a saint.
According to his official biography, Lejeune discovered in 1958 the existence of an additional chromosome on pair 21 during a study of a child’s chromosomes. It was the first time scientists have found a link between an intellectual disability and a chromosomal abnormality; the condition is now known as trisomy 21.
“Although the results of his research should have helped medicine move towards a cure, they are often used to identify children who carry these diseases as early as possible, usually in order to terminate the pregnancy,” wrote the Jerome Lejeune Foundation in his biography.
“As soon as pro-abortion laws were drafted in Western countries, Lejeune began advocating for the protection of the unborn with Down syndrome: he held hundreds of conferences and interviews around the globe to defend life,” the group said.
In 1974, John Paul made Lejeune a member of the think tank of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences at the Vatican and later appointed him first president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the Holy See’s main bioethics advisory commission.
John Paul visited Lejeune’s grave during World Youth Day in Paris in 1997.
Although John Paul made the church’s firm opposition to abortion a hallmark of his quarter-century papacy, Francis also strongly denounced what he calls today’s “discarded culture,” which considers the weak to be weak. disabilities or single-use patients. He compared abortion to hiring a “murdered man” to take care of a problem.