This month, we also celebrate the birthday of Jérôme Lejeune (13 June 1926 – 3 April 1994), a French pediatrician and geneticist, best known for discovering the link of diseases to chromosome abnormalities, especially Down Syndrome to an extra copy of chromosome 21; a discovery he made in 1958. In the next years, he observed with greatest concern that his discovery of trisomy 21 would lead to a medical holocaust, national health systems giving huge funds to track down and eliminate these children before they could be born. As Catholic and physician, he could not agree. In 1969, after receiving the Allan prize granted by the American Society of Human Genetics, Lejeune gave a talk to his colleagues which concluded by explicitly questioning the morality of abortion, an unpopular viewpoint in the profession. In a letter to his wife, Lejeune wrote “today, I lost my Nobel prize in Medicine”. He later became President of the newly founded Pontifical Academy for Life and carefully drafted its bylaws and the oath of the Servants of Life that each member of the Academy must take.
Update 03 April 2024: Dr. Lejeune first encountered Cardinal Karol Wojtyla in Krakow in 1975 during a conference focused on the beginning of life. Several years later, Cardinal Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II. Throughout his papacy, their paths crossed on multiple occasions in Rome. Notably, Dr. Lejeune and his wife shared a meal with the Pontiff on 13 May 1981, when an attempt was made on the Pope’s life. Following the scientist’s passing, John Paul II paid homage to his legacy by visiting his gravesite in 1997 during World Youth Day in Paris.
Sources: Wikipedia, MercatorNet, comments to our FB post
Science meets Faith 