Next weekend, at the 11:15 Mass at St. Cecilia’s, we will be welcoming the St. Robert Bellarmine Apostolate for Individuals with Down Syndrome to worship with us. This is an apostolate that gives prayerful support to individuals with Down syndrome, their families, and caregivers. They will host a lunch reception in the parish hall immediately following Mass, to which all are invited. I hope you will join us.
It was the French geneticist Dr. Jerome Lejeune (1926-1994) who discovered in 1958 the extra chromosome that causes Trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome. Human beings typically have 46 chromosomes, arranged in 23 pairs. Lejeune discovered that those with Down syndrome had 47 chromosomes, the extra chromosome linked to the 21st pair. This was the first time an intellectual disability was shown to be the result of a chromosomal abnormality. It was an important breakthrough in the field of genetics, and Lejeune hoped it would lead to new therapeutic treatments for those who had such abnormalities.
But the discovery also enabled doctors to do pre-natal screening of children for Down syndrome. Because such diagnoses can be difficult for parents to receive, this has often led to the abortion of the affected child. This application of his discovery was very upsetting to Lejeune, who was openly critical of his fellow physicians for it. “Medicine is a very simple application of knowledge. It is the hate of a disease, and the love of a patient…. [Doctors] are at the service of the patient. We are not at the service of disease. So, [doctors] who propose to kill a Down syndrome baby, because they have rejected who he or she was, are making the enormous mistake of fighting for the disease and against a patient.”
Whenever Lejeune learned of a child who had unexpectedly been born with Down syndrome, he wanted to meet with the parents. He once said: “It’s a terrible distress to the parents to know the baby will not have the blossoming of reason like they expected. But they will discover that reasoning and calculating is one part only of mankind and probably not the most precious. [These children] have a perfectly normal taste for art and for love.” Lejeune would say, “It isn’t that the disease is a good disease, it is a bad disease. I hate it. But those babies have some language, some tenderness, some absence of frugality in love. They have their own character and they are very lovable. That’s a fact. It’s not a fancy.” When asked what she thought his greatest legacy was, a former student replied: “His commitment to helping parents fall in love with their children with unconditional love.”
The same student noted that when Lejeune would meet with his patients with Down syndrome, he would set up a microscope with two sets of viewing lenses. He would talk with the patient and answer the patient’s questions. Together they would look through the microscope at a tissue sample from the patient and count the chromosome pairs. When they reached 21, they would see three chromosomes instead of the normal two, and the patient would say: “Ah, that’s why I’m so special.” Jerome Lejeune was a very good doctor, whose tender care for patients was informed by his love for Christ. So much so, that in 2021 he was declared “venerable” by Pope Francis, advancing his cause for canonization.
posted 9/7/24
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 