Its about French pediatrician and geneticist Jérôme Jean Louis Marie Lejeune (1926-1994), who in 1962 was appointed as an expert in human genetics at the World Health Organization (WHO).
In addition, in 1964 he was appointed Director of the National Center for Scientific Research in France and in the same year the first chair of fundamental Genetics was located at the Sorbonne Medical School. Which led him to become No. 1 candidate for the Nobel Prize.
Holy or not?
According to research done by the BBCwas “Personal friend of then Pope John Paul II (1920-2005), first president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, a man close to the conservative organization Opus Dei, and a staunch critical of initiatives to legalize abortionLejeune came to be regarded as a future saint from the day of his death.”
However, it was not until 13 years after his death that the church opened its canonization processin the diocesan phase, that is, with religious and researchers in Paris, where he lived, compiling biographical information that attests to his relevance and potential virtues.
“With the recognition of his heroic virtues, a miracle attributed to his intercession is needed for beatification,” Italian Vatican expert Andrea Gagliarducci told BBC Brazil.
“[Eso significa algo] which is scientifically inexplicable, attributed to the intercession of the [candidato a] holy”.
For this, as detailed, there are two commissions in the Congregation for the Causes of Saints: one composed of medical experts and the other of theologians.
“It won’t be immediate,” he says. “But it may not be long. Depends on how many cases [de milagros potenciales] present themselves to the Congregation.
At this stage of the process, a good information campaign helps leverage the cause. This is because the more people know about the candidacy of the future saint, more people will pray for him. And finally, the more people pray for him, the greater the chance that unexplained events will be attributed to his help.
As sociologist Francisco Borba Ribeiro Neto, coordinator of the Faith and Culture Center of the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo (PUC-SP), explains, the time needed to recognize a miracle usually depends on two factors.
“How many people have devotion to his memory and ask him to intercede for them, and how much is invested in his cause of beatification, both institutionally and financially,” he tells BBC Brasil.
“The more that is known and the more resources those responsible for his beatification cause have to find people and deepen the inquiries to corroborate the miracles, the faster the process advances.”
To date, there is no evidence that any possible miracle attributed to Lejeune is being analyzed.
Do your achievements make you a saint?
Without a doubt, one of his most important achievements was the discovery of down syndrome, which he discovered when he was examining the chromosomes of a child with the syndrome. Which yielded trisomy 21, the genetic abnormality that causes the disease.
It is estimated that treated more than 9,000 patients with intellectual disabilities and analyzed around 30,000 chromosomal tests. In 1964, he became the first professor of genetics at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris.
“However, Ljeune was very strong in his criticism. He had the moral conviction, not only from the Christian point of view, but also from the scientific point of view, that it was not right to practice abortion, nor perform fertilization outside the womb or any other manipulation on the embryo”.
From pro-life to pro-death for some
Even so, and despite their political and religious relations some are against his beatification.
“At this point, it seems very strange that the Catholic Church, in this case Pope Francis, recognizes the heroic virtues of this man. His virtues were only scientific, because in relation to the lives of women and adolescents, he actually contributed in some way to death”.
Well, in countries where the abortion is illegalthousands of women end up looking for clandestine clinics and dying because of the precarious conditions.
“Being against the legislation that allows women to decide whether or not they want to have an abortion at some point in life is, in fact, being against life.”
What do you think?
With information from the BBC.
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