There are anniversaries that the world deliberately chooses to ignore or forget. One of these is undoubtedly the centenary of the birth of the Venerable Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune, a French physician and geneticist who discovered that children with Down syndrome have an extra chromosome in the 21st pair of chromosomes (hence the term “trisomy 21”). After this initial discovery, Dr. Lejeune identified other chromosomal abnormalities, earning him significant fame in the scientific community. However, within that same community, he was often attacked: his “sin” was being a practicing Catholic, having demonstrated that science was not incompatible with faith, and having opposed eugenic abortion. In 1969, when he received the Allen Memorial Prize in San Francisco, he delivered a speech in which he officially urged his colleagues to reject eugenics and defend life. After that speech, he was isolated from the international scientific community. In the 1980s, funding for his research was cut and his collaborators were fired.

Despite the pressures and ostracism from his colleagues, he traveled the world to testify in the media, before parliaments, and at scientific conferences about the beauty and inviolable dignity of human life. He received countless awards and was appointed a member of numerous international academies and institutions. In 1964, he was appointed the first professor of fundamental genetics at the Paris Faculty of Medicine, and Pope Paul VI appointed him a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1974.

Private life

It is also worth remembering his private life. He was born on June 13, 1926, in Montrouge, near Paris, into a deeply Catholic family. In 1944, he began medical studies in Paris and obtained his doctorate in 1951. A year later, he married Birthe Bringsted, a young Danish Protestant who converted to Catholicism during their engagement. Three days before the wedding, Jérôme sent Birthe a letter of profound significance, proposing to dedicate his life to children affected by trisomy 21 (Down syndrome): “It is an exciting goal that will require great sacrifices, my dear, but if you agree to live a life a bit uncertain but just and healthy, based on this hope, I am sure we will achieve it. (I say ‘we’ because only if you walk by my side, if you help me, will I be able to achieve something).” Birthe became not only Dr. Lejeune’s wife but also his companion in the fight for the life of the most vulnerable. Five children were born from their marriage.

Professor Lejeune’s pioneering research also led to the development of prenatal tests to detect Down syndrome in the unborn, many of whom were aborted for eugenic reasons. The scientist condemned this abuse of science, defining it as “chromosomal racism,” and became one of the few prominent scientists in France to protest against eugenic abortion.

Relationship with John Paul II

John Paul II held Professor Lejeune in high esteem, having met him for the first time on a very special day: May 13, 1981, a few hours before the attack. The meeting was organized by the well-known Italian journalist Alberto Michelini. Professor Lejeune, his wife, and Michelini had lunch with the Pope, after which they discussed the situation of the Church in France. Lejeune cited episodes of hostility towards him, not only from the political world but also from within the Church. The Pope bid farewell to his guests around 3:30 PM, less than two hours before the attack.

The Lejeune couple went directly from the Vatican to the airport to return to Paris. From Michelini’s accounts, I know that the news of the attack was a great shock to the professor: Lejeune felt very ill and had to be hospitalized that same evening.

In 1986, John Paul II appointed the professor as a member of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers, and in 1994 he became the first president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, an institution much desired by the Pope, who dedicated his first apostolic exhortation, “Familiaris Consortio” (November 22, 1981), to the theme of family and life.

The Pope and the scientist remained friends for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, Jérôme Lejeune died prematurely at the age of 68 in 1994, struck by a fulminating cancer. When John Paul II traveled to France three years later for World Youth Day, he wanted to visit a small cemetery near Paris, the professor’s burial place, to pay tribute to his friend, although the visit had not been planned in advance and the French authorities had advised against this improvised visit to Chalo-Saint-Mars.

Legacy and recent years

During the pontificate of Francis, in 2021, Lejeune was proclaimed Venerable Servant of God for his deep Christian faith and his compassion for the sick and the poor.

This year marks the centenary of the birth of this great scientist and true Catholic: the beatification process is underway. On this occasion, Leo XIV wanted to receive a delegation of members of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation. This Foundation continues the work of the prematurely deceased scientist, funding research on genetic intellectual disabilities to improve the memory, language, and cognitive functions of patients.

The Pope highlighted Lejeune’s sensitive nature, who called his patients “the poorest of the poor” and defended with passion “the life and dignity of the weakest”. He also recalled the scientist’s words, which he repeated with affection: “Medicine is hatred for disease and love for the sick.” Leo XIV, remembering the professor’s involvement in the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and his membership in the Pontifical Academy for Life, an institution that Lejeune considered essential “in the face of growing threats to life,” also pointed out that the doctor himself knew “that his scientific discovery would be used to eliminate people with trisomy 21 even before their birth.” But he did not hesitate to defend them, condemning the violation of the Hippocratic Oath and the new eugenics, which he defined as “chromosomal racism”. He committed himself to defending the life of every human being in the name of his inviolable dignity, which originates from God’s creative act.

This battle earned him harsh criticism in the scientific community, but the doctor knew that “technology can be used against medicine, which by its very nature is at the service of life.” “This is what happens when technology escapes any significant ethical examination and calculations of efficiency, profitability, or utility prevail,” the Pope explained. Leo XIV encouraged the Foundation’s members to continue the work initiated by Dr. Lejeune in the fields of research, care, and the unconditional defense of the human person. “Be like him, committed witnesses in society, in the service of the constant search for the common good. This is the first great principle of the Church’s social teaching, and of the ‘social form’ of the dignity recognized to each one. The common good does not exclude any of those who have been created in the image and likeness of God” – with these words the Pope concluded his speech to the representatives of the Foundation who follow in the footsteps of Professor Lejeune.

The text in Polish was published here