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Feature News | Monday, October 20, 2014

Dr. Jerome Lejeune: a pro-life saint-in-waiting?

Speakers praise Catholic pediatrician, geneticist who discovered cause of Down Syndrome

Father Hector Perez, pastor of St. John the Apostle Church in Hialeah, gives a blessing at the start of the luncheon.

Photographer: ANNE DIBERNARDO | FC

Father Hector Perez, pastor of St. John the Apostle Church in Hialeah, gives a blessing at the start of the luncheon.

HIALEAH GARDENS | A French pediatrician who discovered the extra chromosome that causes Down Syndrome was hailed as “one of the great researchers and Christians of the 20th century” by speakers at a recent pro-life luncheon.

One of the keynote speakers, Ombretta Salvucci, Ph.D., cancer researcher at the National Institutes of Health and a member of the Jerome Lejeune Foundation, encourages everyone seeking a miracle to pray to Dr. Jerome Lejeune.

Photographer: ANNE DIBERNARDO | FC

One of the keynote speakers, Ombretta Salvucci, Ph.D., cancer researcher at the National Institutes of Health and a member of the Jerome Lejeune Foundation, encourages everyone seeking a miracle to pray to Dr. Jerome Lejeune.

The legacy of Dr. Jérôme Lejeune, whose cause for canonization opened in 2007, provided the theme for the second annual luncheon to benefit the work of the North Dade Pregnancy Help Center.

The center is part of five archdiocesan respect life facilities where women can obtain free pregnancy tests and find both spiritual and material support for keeping their unborn children.

The more than 300 guests who attended the luncheon, held at the end of September in Hialeah Gardens, heard from Dr. Mark Basik, associate professor of oncology and surgery at McGill University in Montreal, and Ombretta Salvucci, Ph.D., a cancer researcher at the National Institutes of Health and member of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation.

Both discussed Lejeune’s cause for canonization, referring to the doctor and geneticist — who was born in 1926 — as a saint for modern times.

Lejeune is “one of the great researchers and Christians of the 20th century,” said Basik.

The Paris pediatrician became one of the most famous scientists in the world when in 1958 he found the extra chromosome — chromosome 21 — present in children with Down Syndrome, a genetic condition that causes delay in physical and intellectual development.

Lejeune also was an ardent defender of life — especially the life of the unborn. He was a man of medicine and faith who called children with Down Syndrome “the dear little ones” and spent much of his life defending their right to life.

Basik called Lejeune a scientific optimist because he spent his life trying to cure Down Syndrome, an intellectual effort he once described as “less difficult than sending a man to the moon.”

Keynote speaker Dr. Mark Basik, associate professor of oncology and surgery at McGill University in Montreal, spoke about the legacy of Servant of God Jerome Lejeune, a French pediatrician and geneticist who in 1958 found the extra chromosome that causes Down Syndrome.

Photographer: ANNE DIBERNARDO | FC

Keynote speaker Dr. Mark Basik, associate professor of oncology and surgery at McGill University in Montreal, spoke about the legacy of Servant of God Jerome Lejeune, a French pediatrician and geneticist who in 1958 found the extra chromosome that causes Down Syndrome.

Basik pointed out that Lejeune’s goal was to cure the disease “because my patients are waiting for me.”

“He was very sad when he found out that his discovery was being used to facilitate abortion, which is the opposite of what he wanted to do,” Basik said.

For many years, Down Syndrome was thought to be caused by a sexually transmitted disease, and the mothers and their children were ostracized by society. Lejeune’s discovery restored their dignity and opened a new field of cytogenetics — studying diseases that are caused by chromosomal changes.

But it also paved the way for pre-natal diagnosis of Down Syndrome, and elective abortions of children with the condition.

According to the National Association for Down Syndrome, the condition occurs in one in every 691 live births. It is the most frequently occurring chromosomal disorder. The coalition also reports that, as of 2006, approximately 50 percent of fetuses with Down Syndrome are aborted.

In August 1969, the American Society of Human Genetics granted Lejeune its highest honor, the William Allen Memorial Award. In his talk accepting the award, he spoke out against using pre-natal diagnosis to abort an unborn child — and his words were not well received.

Generally ostracized by the scientific community, he later took great comfort in his friendship with St. John Paul II, who appointed him president of the Pontifical Academy for Life just before his death from cancer on Easter morning in 1994.

“If the Father who is in heaven called him from this earth on the very day of Christ’s resurrection, it is difficult not to see in this coincidence a sign,” the pope wrote in a message upon Lejeune’s death.

Salvucci, the cancer researcher, said she never met Lejeune, but introduces him to everyone as her “best friend.” She explained that her devotion to him inspired her to become involved in the cause for his canonization.

Barbara Groeber, left, education coordinator for the archdiocesan Respect Life Office, and Joan Crown, respect life director, listen to the key note presentation.

Photographer: ANNE DIBERNARDO | FC

Barbara Groeber, left, education coordinator for the archdiocesan Respect Life Office, and Joan Crown, respect life director, listen to the key note presentation.

“I was going through a professional drama that precipitated a personal crisis, which made it hard to face my work with a positive attitude,” Salvucci said.

Reflecting on the words of a priest who told her it was good to pray to modern saints who are close to one’s profession, she recalled being overjoyed to discover that Lejeune’s cause for beatification had been opened.

She began to pray to him and even posted a picture of him on her desk so she would have his presence near her every day. She noted that co-workers would come to her desk and ask who he was, but no one in the field of genetics knew of him.

According to Salvucci, once she placed the picture on her desk, “from that moment on my life changed, as my attitude miraculously became one of hope and promise that infected home and work and all those around me.”

In order to learn more about Lejeune she reached out to his family. Today she works to help spread his name throughout the world and encourages anyone seeking a miracle to pray to him.

The Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, founded 20 years ago, supports research, care, and advocacy for people with Down Syndrome and other genetic disabilities, all carried out in a spirit of profound respect for the dignity of all human persons, from the moment of conception to natural death.

Salvucci asked anyone who believes that a prayer has been answered through Lejeune’s intercession to let her know, so she can send word to the postulator for his canonization in Rome. 

Prayer for the intercession of the Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune 

God, who created man in Your image and intended him to share Your Glory, we thank You for having granted to Your Church the gift of Professor Jérôme Lejeune, a distinguished Servant of Life.

He knew how to place his immense intelligence and deep faith at the service of the defense of human life, especially unborn life, always seeking to treat and to cure. A passionate witness to truth and charity, he knew how to reconcile faith and reason in the sigh of today’s world.

By his intercession, and according to Your will, we ask You to grant us the graces we implore, hoping that he will soon become one of Your saints. Amen

With ecclesiastical approval
Mgr. André Vingt-Trois
Cardinal Archbishop of Paris

 

Please communicate obtained graces to:
Postulation de la cause de beatification et de canonization
du Serviteur de Dieu Jérôme Lejeune
Abbaye Saint-Wandrille F-76490
SAINT-WANDRILLE-France 

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