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A sickness and a silver crown: How Saint Louis University survived the cholera epidemic of 1849

December 28, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

St. Louis, Mo., Dec 28, 2020 / 03:30 am (CNA).- In the basement of St. Francis Xavier College Church on the campus of Saint Louis University stands a statue of the Blessed Mother and the Child Jesus.

Cut from plain white stone, the statue stands smaller-than-life on a pedestal across from a small chapel. It bears some obvious signs of age: the fingers on the child’s hand, extended in blessing, have eroded away, and the corner of Mary’s lips displays a darkened blemish. It appears, on first sight, rather unremarkable.

Unremarkable, that is, until one learns its place in the history of the school.

“Today, I don’t get the impression that many know the story or know the history of the statue when they walk past it in the vestibule of the Lady Chapel at College Church,” Fr. David Suwalsky, S.J., head of the Department of Theological Studies at SLU, and a historian, told CNA.

A bronze plaque across from the chapel chronicles the statue’s story. The plaque explains the role the statue played for the university in a time of crisis — a crisis averted, some say, due to Our Lady’s intercession and the prayers of the community. A story of prayer amid pestilence, it is an episode of history worth recalling amid the spread of the coronavirus.

Epidemic in a growing city

In the 1840s, the city of St. Louis, originally a small French trading post along the Mississippi River, was booming. It had become the gateway to the expanding American West, with land to grab and gold to be dug. By 1849, inhabitants of the city numbered around 77,000.

Then came the cholera epidemic.

“The city was very fearful,” said Christopher Alan Gordon, director of Library & Collections at the Missouri Historical Society, who wrote a book on the epidemic’s effect on St. Louis entitled Fire, Pestilence, and Death: St. Louis 1849.

The cholera spread of that year originated in Europe and made its way to the United States via trade and immigration. At the time, many new arrivals to America were making their way to St. Louis,to settle there or to continue westward.

The earliest deaths from the epidemic in St. Louis occurred in January, and the disease reached its peak from late April to mid-July.

“Once it began to take hold in spring, people began to flee the city,” Gordon said.

Even government officials took refuge in the surrounding countryside, forcing the mayor to appoint an emergency Committee of Public Health in June with near-total control over the city, to halt the spread of disease.

Such was the city’s desperation that they even took to banning vegetables and sauerkraut, which were erroneously thought to spread cholera through rotting. The city removed garbage and refuse, and citizens burned barrels of pitch and tar in hopes of cleansing the atmosphere of “miasma,” a Greek word for “bad air.”

Only later would germ theory allow medical scientists to discover that cholera spreads through bad water; at the time, St. Louis lacked proper sewage.

Some efforts, however, amounted to what would be recognized today as effective anti-contagion measures. Arrivals in the city were screened for symptoms, and a makeshift hospital was constructed on an island in the Mississippi River, dubbed “Quarantine Island.”

“Given what’s going on in the world” with the spread of coronavirus, Gordon said, “I think people should look back on these epidemics and realize that there are real lessons that were learned, and there was progress that came out of them that has really helped us in our daily lives today.”

Even as the city filled Quarantine Island, however, the disease continued to spread, and at the peak of the epidemic, 200 funerals a day were recorded.

“You read these accounts, particularly in May and June of 1849, where people talk about the streets becoming empty,” said Gordon.
“It was a scary time, it was a scary place to be.”

Saint Louis University & the silver crown

Documents preserved in the Jesuit Archives & Research Center in St. Louis, as well as the Saint Louis University Libraries Archives, provide a window into life at the school during the epidemic — and how the Madonna statue of St. Francis Xavier College Church factored into that period of Saint Louis University’s history.

In 1849, Saint Louis University, then an all-male institution, had a population of more than 200 student boarders, many of whom came from wealthy homes in the South and along the East Coast. There was also a population of “day-scholars” who travelled to the university from their own homes in St. Louis to attend the school each day. Just over 30 years old, the university was one of the larger educational institutions west of the Mississippi.

Whispers of the coming pestilence had reached St. Louis via newspaper before the disease claimed its first victims in January 1849. Preemptive fear gripped the city, including the university. An undated petition signed by 16 students sometime in the latter half of 1848, exclaims “Le Choléra!!!” and implores in French that students be allowed to smoke, claiming that “the smoke of tobacco is capable of repulsing this enemy.”

By May 1849, the situation had grown dire. A letter from Fr. Pierre-Jean De Smet, S.J., then second-in-command of the local Jesuit province, records that in that month, prayers against the calamity were “said every evening in our churches and novenas said in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” Among these churches was St. Francis Xavier.

With students living so close together on a campus in the thick of the growing city and the epidemic pressing from all sides, anxieties mounted high at Saint Louis University.

Fearful for the school, the students’ Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary club was among the groups praying daily for safety from the epidemic at St. Francis Xavier. Sometime in May, at the behest of Fr. Isidore Boudreaux, S.J., the head of the Sodality, the group gathered the student body in the chapel.

Fr. De Smet records that there, in front of the statue that now rests outside the current church’s daily Mass chapel, the students gathered to ask Mary’s protection on the whole student body from the plague:

“Assembled in the chapel of the Sodality, which is specifically dedicated to Our Lady, with lips which gave utterance to the deepest feelings of their hearts, they implored her divine protection; on their knees, with filial confidence and affection, they besought Mary, their heavenly Mother, to shield them from the coming pestilence, and with a loving, childlike simplicity, they promised that if none of them, or of those living in the University, should fall victims to the cholera, they would place on her statue a silver crown, which would be to them a continual memorial of her love.”

The school also placed medals of the Immaculate Conception on the gates and doors of the school, a brief biography of Boudreaux located in the Jesuit Archives notes.

This promise to Mary “seemed to have dispelled all fear” among the students, Fr. Thomas Chambers, S.J., said in a letter dated October 1899, 50 years after the plague. He records that some students, when asked if they were worried about the epidemic, replied, “No! The cholera durst not enter those College walls. The Bl. Virgin keeps it off.”

Throughout the course of the epidemic, the Jesuits focused much of their ministry on serving the sick. “Our Fathers were night and day, for months together, among the dead and dying,” Fr. De Smet recorded in the months following the epidemic.

One in particular, Fr. Arnold Damen, was recognized by the city of St. Louis for his efforts against the contagion. Also assisting the sick around the clock from the university faculty was Dr. Moses Linton, a decorated professor at the medical school.

In June, students were sent home for fear of the illness, and the university closed until September. Commencement exercises were canceled. The year instead concluded with the annual dinner on the feast of John the Baptist.

“I assure you it was a happy thought to break up [the school term],” reads a letter dated June 9, 1849 from Boudreaux. “Most of the parents were on the point of recalling their sons.”

The official death toll for the city from cholera that year stands at 5,547. The actual number is almost certainly far higher due to the inexactitude of many records and the fact that many of the dead were buried outside the city proper. Many estimates, Gordon said, place the actual number between 7,000 and 8,000. Either way, it amounts to a sizable fraction of the 77,000 population in the city.

The contagion reached its height in St. Louis that July, with 2,211 deaths, and at the start of August, the Committee of Public Health declared that the emergency in the city had officially ended. That same month, only 54 died of the disease.

When Saint Louis University resumed session in September, the epidemic had well died off.

With students back at the school, they were all of them safe from the effects of cholera, and all priests remained in good health despite their constant ministry to the sick.

The epidemic that had claimed around a tenth of the population of the city and wreaked havoc across the world had not crept into campus walls. The student body remained whole, and none of the Jesuits had fallen sick despite their vigorous ministry to the infirm.

The school took this as a sign of their vow to the Blessed Mother. On the evening of October 8 that year, the university gathered for a two-and-a-half hour ceremony to uphold their promise and crown the statue.

Fr. De Smet records that the church was decorated in evergreen garlands and flowers, white wreaths, and “numberless” lamps ranged in the shapes of “hearts, crowns, and crosses.” The ceremony included Benediction, hymns, and a talk “every way well suited to the occasion” by a Rev. Gleizal, whom he describes as “a most devoted servant of Mary.” Students carried lighted candles wrapped in small wreaths.

At the climax of the coronation ceremony, the crown was blessed and processed twice around the church, a scene De Smet described as “beautiful and imposing,” before the crowd sang the the Te Deum and, “[a]mid a most deathlike silence,” crowned the statue of the Mother to whom they attributed their survival.

The silver crown today

Today, the crown rests separate from the statue, occasionally trading homes between its current location at St. Francis Xavier and a museum on SLU’s campus. The students of the 1840s also dedicated a marble plaque in Latin that described the history of the statue and crown. That plaque today lies in storage, too heavy for the walls of the current chapel. A bronze version with a translation of the original marble display hangs beside the statue instead. The parish has moved location in the elapsing century and a half, and the statue, crown, and plaques are some of the few remains of the original church.

The SLU population of 1849 had several temporal factors working in its favor, Fr. Suwalsky noted.

“Poverty meant that families couldn’t afford doctors which meant that they were not subjected to the horror that was medicine in those days,” he said. “No dirty hands, instruments or wacky potions… Plus the students were male, young and healthy and therefore less susceptible to illness.” Suwalsky also noted that the university population also likely had access to better-quality water than did many poorer parts of the city.

“Still,” he said, “it is an amazing thing that a disease as virulent as cholera which took the lives of as many as 10% of St. Louis’ population didn’t reach into the university community. I am willing to call that a miracle.”

Of course, not all prayers are so explicitly answered.

“They were trusting that placing themselves under the protection of the Virgin would bring about a very positive thing,” Fr. Suwalsky said, “and I’m not sure that they had any sort of guarantee that they would emerge unscathed. But, they trusted that it was the right thing to do, and I think that’s all we can do. Trust that the Lord provides for us, and we will continue to believe that God’s help and grace is always present and available to us.”

The story of the Mary statue at St. Francis Xavier College Church bears relevance today in the face of another global epidemic, with the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“These things aren’t, sadly, unique” from a historical perspective, Fr. Suwalsky said. “We should understand that you do the right things and you keep working.” Today, SLU is one of a number of universities that has made adjustments due to COVID-19.

“There’s always been the practice in the Church to place ourselves under the patronage, under the beneficial, beneficent care of the Virgin,” he said. “And that was exactly what they were doing in 1849, and probably something that Catholics should still do today.”

“It’s this idea that the caring Mother of God will take care of us, and that helps us to get out of our own selves and our own fears.”

This article was originally published on CNA March 25, 2020.


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Massachusetts governor vetoes extreme pro-abortion bill the day after Christmas

December 27, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Boston, Mass., Dec 27, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Charlie Baker, the pro-choice Republican governor of Massachusetts, vetoed a bill that would legalize abortions up to birth and lower to 16 the age for girls to get abortions without a parent’s knowledge or consent.

The state House and Senate have sent the bill to Gov. Charlie Baker on Tuesday, December 22nd, rejecting changes he made earlier this month to limit the expansion of late-term abortions and to require parental consent before underage girls get abortions.

Explaining his decision to veto the bill, Baker insisted that although he supports abortion “I cannot support the sections of this proposal that expand the availability of late-term abortions and permit minors age 16 and 17 to get an abortion without the consent of a parent or guardian.”

Earlier in the year, the Massachusetts Catholic Conference stated that the bill, “if enacted, would expand access to abortion in Massachusetts.”

“Most troubling is the fact that under these provisions, women will have greater access to late-term abortions throughout the term of their pregnancy with no specific statutory requirement that a physician utilize lifesaving medical equipment if a child is born alive.”

The Massachusetts Catholic Conference had yet to react to the governor’s veto, while the legislature has already announced an effort to override the veto early in 2021, which will require a two-thirds majority in both the state House and the Senate.

The bill, called the ROE act by supporters, passed in the state House by 107-50, while the vote in the state Senate was an uncounted voice vote.


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In EWTN interview, Cardinal Pell discusses acquittal, Vatican finances

December 21, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Dec 21, 2020 / 04:47 pm (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell, who was acquitted this year after becoming the highest-ranking Catholic cleric ever to be convicted of sexual abuse, spoke this week about his time in prison, his hopes for the future, and his thoughts on Vatican financial reform efforts.

Pell was initially convicted in Australia in 2018 of multiple counts of sexual abuse. On April 7, 2020, Australia’s High Court overturned his six-year prison sentence. The High Court ruled that he should not have been found guilty of the charges and that the prosecution had not proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

Pell spent 13 months in solitary confinement, during which time he was not permitted to celebrate Mass.

The cardinal still faces a canonical investigation at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, though after his conviction was overturned, several canonical experts said it was unlikely he would actually face a Church trial.

In a new interview with EWTN, Pell said his time in jail was difficult, but he was strengthened by many people offering prayers and sacrifices for him.

“[O]ne of the great differences between us and people without religion is that we believe in some mysterious way suffering can be turned to good. So many people wrote to me and said me they were offering their suffering for me: a young fellow who was dying, a woman wrote and said she was about to give birth and she said would offer up the pains of childbirth for me,” he said in the December 9 interview.

“I felt I could offer up my suffering for the good of the Church, for the victims [of clerical sex abuse], for my family, for my friends, and that helped,” he continued.

“And it also helps to realize that ultimately there’s one judgement that’s supremely important and that’s before the good God when you die. Now if I had thought that death was the end of everything, that the ultimately important thing was my earthly reputation, well obviously my approach would have been different.”

Pell said that although he had faced animosity in his career, the type of infamy that comes with allegations of sex abuse are extremely challenging, especially when he had to remain silent in the face of unfair reporting.

Still, the cardinal said he never despaired during his time in prison, although losing his appeal at the Victoria Supreme Court “was a very low moment.”

“I knew rationally, that my case was enormously strong, but things are not decided on rationality and that Appeal court decision in Victoria reminded me of that,” he said.

“One of the interesting things in Rome was that even my ideological enemies didn’t believe that I was guilty,” he noted. “Now one reason for that was because they knew what a Cathedral is like after a big Mass on Sunday. Many of the people in Australia, even a few of those who were helping me, think of churches as being small and empty and nobody around. But in a cathedral on Sunday, we were, you know, there were hundreds in the big Mass, 50 in the choir, 15 servers, half a dozen people in the sacristy, plus the visitors. The suggestion that I would have attacked two youngsters I didn’t know, nobody said I knew them, in such circumstances, is doubly implausible.”

In Australia, however, he said some people treated him as a scapegoat, seeing not just him but the Catholic Church more broadly on trial for sex abuse.

Pell said his time in prison was somewhat like a retreat – removed from the world and isolated from social interaction.

While there were moments where he wondered why God was allowing his suffering, he also hopes that his ordeal can bring souls to Christianity.

Pell said he is not angry looking back at his experience, but is glad to be back in Rome to thank Pope Francis for his support.

Although he is no longer prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, as his term expired last year, he said his successor, Jesuit priest Fr. Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves is “a good man, a competent man.”

“He’s headed in the right direction and I totally support him,” Pell said. “I just hope he’s not thwarted the way I am. The Holy Father says there’s got to be an investment committee set up to manage Vatican investment. We recommended that 5 years ago. Now that’s got to be men and women by honest and really professional investors and given effective control. That’s what my successor wants and I fully support that so that we can get away from this shadowy world that the Vatican has dealt with, not all always, but so many times, for decades.”

Reflecting on his own time heading the secretariat, Pell said he “didn’t quite realize just the level of sophistication, corruption, and a good measure of incompetence that would be there.”

During his time as prefect, he discovered more than 1 billion euro in accounts that had not been declared.

Pell addressed speculations that the sex abuse allegations against him were an attempt to prevent his anti-corruption work in Vatican finances. He said that while there is evidence to support this idea, there is not proof, and more investigation is needed.

“A lot of the people who were working for serious reform here believed there was a connection. Amongst my supporters in Australia, almost nobody believed that there was a connection,” he continued. “We now know that quite a number of the criminal elements around the place hoped that I would come to grief in Australia, whether they knew more than that we don’t know.”

Some of this speculation involves media reports that Cardinal Angelo Becciu sent 700,000 euros of Vatican funds to Australia during Pell’s sexual abuse trial, possibly as a payment for Pell’s accusers.

In September, Becciu resigned as prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints and from the rights extended to members of the College of Cardinals.

He worked previously as the number two-ranking official in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, and has been connected to an ongoing investigation of financial malfeasance at the secretariat. He had clashed with Pell over reform efforts in the Vatican.

CNA has reported that in 2015 Becciu seemed to have made an attempt to disguise the loans on Vatican balance sheets by canceling them out against the value of the property purchased in London. Senior officials at the Prefecture for the Economy said that when Pell began to demand details of the loans, Becciu called the cardinal in to the Secretariat of State for a “reprimand.”

In 2016, Becciu also canceled a planned external audit of all Vatican departments.

Asked about Becciu’s resignation, Pell said, “I hope the cleaning of the stables in both my state of Victoria and the Vatican continues.” He added that “Becciu has a right to a trial. Like everybody else, he has a right to due process. So let’s just see where we’ll go.”

Overall, Pell said he thinks the Church is doing a good job of helping sex abuse victims. He pointed to protocols aimed at prevention, reporting and investigation claims, and offering compensation and counseling to survivors.

“I think, for a long time, the Church has basically been heading in the right direction and this hasn’t been as sufficiently recognized,” he said.

Looking forward, the cardinal said he plans to write and speak, and added that “like every good Christian, I should try to prepare for a good death.”


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Analysis: Vatican decision on Indianapolis could impact pending lawsuit, and Catholic identity in Catholic schools

December 21, 2020 CNA Daily News 4

Denver Newsroom, Dec 21, 2020 / 09:35 am (CNA).- The outcome of a Vatican appeal involving same-sex civil marriage and the Catholic identity of an Indiana school could have effect on a pending religious liberty lawsuit, and on the way other Catholic schools approach the issue of Catholic identity among their faculty.

Layton Payne-Elliot is a math teacher at Brebeuf Jesuit High School in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. In 2017, the school became aware that Payne-Elliot had contracted a same-sex marriage with Joshua Payne-Elliot, a teacher at Cathedral High School, which is also in the archdiocese.

The archdiocese asked that both schools not renew the teachers’ contracts, because, they said, teachers in Catholic schools are supposed to be witnesses of Catholic doctrine, and contracting a same-sex marriage constitutes a public act of counterwitness to that doctrine.

Brebeuf refused the archdiocesan instruction. In turn, the archdiocese revoked the school’s recognition as Catholic. The school appealed that decision to the Congregation for Catholic Education.

Curial officials close to the case have warned for months that Indianapolis’ Archbishop Charles Thompson is unlikely to find support for his deployment of the “nuclear option” in response to the school’s decision on Layton.

Several Vatican officials have told CNA that after some gestures of consideration, Brebeuf’s Catholic identity will likely remain intact, and the practical autonomy of institutes administered by religious orders will be bolstered by the Congregation’s decision.

A decision against Thompson could impact an ongoing civil lawsuit over the same case.

Joshua Payne-Elliot, who taught at Cathedral High School, filed suit against the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in 2019, after he was fired from his position. His case is currently before the state Supreme Court; this month the court rejected a request from the archdiocese to dismiss the case.

Cathedral High School’s handbook states that the “personal conduct” of all teachers should “convey and be supportive of the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

The Department of Justice has filed an amicus brief on behalf of the archdiocese, saying that “religious employers are entitled to employ in key roles only persons whose beliefs and conduct are consistent with the employers’ religious precepts,” and the government cannot interfere “with the autonomy of religious organizations.”

But according to The Indiana Lawyer, a judge in the litigation offered an unexpected settlement proposal last year.

Judge Stephan Heiman suggested that the parties reach a settlement that would depend on the Vatican’s decision in Brebeuf Jesuit’s canonical appeal against the archbishop. The judge suggested that if the archdiocese prevailed in Rome, the civil litigation would be dismissed, but if Brebeuf won in Rome, “the liability of the Archdiocese to Payne-Elliott would be established as a legal matter.”

Payne-Elliot accepted the idea, but the archdiocese did not. It’s worth noting that the judge’s proposal seemed to consider that the Congregation for Catholic Education will rule on the issue only as a matter of principle, when, in fact, there are any number of technical canonical issues at play, all of which may be a factor in the canonical case.

Heiman has recused himself from the case, and a special judge has been appointed.

But Heiman’s proposed settlement indicated that he saw a correlation between the Congregation’s decision and the case before him. That idea may well be picked up by Judge Lance Hammer, who is now overseeing the case, or argued for by Payne-Elliot’s attorneys, especially if the Congregation decides against Thompson without clarity on the reasons.

In short, the canonical specifics of the Vatican’s decision may well prove an operative factor in the ongoing civil litigation.

Of course, a decision against the archdiocese could also have a chilling effect on other Catholic institutions which require that teachers or employees live according to Catholic doctrine. It is unlikely bishops will be willing to press institutions in their diocese on such requirements, especially institutions administered by religious institutes, if they expect Rome won’t support their decisions on the matter.

Across the U.S., Catholic bishops in recent years have strengthened their policies on the Catholic identity of employees, in light of a number of religious liberty decisions in U.S. courts. But to understand how those policies might actually be applied in the years to come, many will now be looking to Rome, and to Indianapolis.
 

 


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Colorado medical practice to offer specialized care to adults with Down syndrome

December 21, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Denver, Colo., Dec 21, 2020 / 07:15 am (CNA).- In a first-of-its-kind initiative, a Catholic-run healthcare practice in Colorado will partner with a major foundation based in Paris to bring specialized medical care to adults with Down syndrome.

Bella Health & Wellness, a practice based in the Denver suburb of Englewood, Colorado, announced at a Dec. 3 fundraiser that they will partner with the Jerome Lejeune Foundation, a French organization named for the pro-life doctor who discovered the genetic cause of Down syndrome in the 1950s.

Dede Chism, Bella’s co-founder and executive director, told CNA that the Lejeune Foundation was looking to partner with a medical practice in the United States that shared their ethos.

“The biggest thing is really believing in one another’s mission. We really believe in the mission of Lejeune and the mission of life…to be able to augment one another’s capacity to care by joining forces in any way that we can,” Chism told CNA.

Named for Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune, a French pediatrician and geneticist, the Lejeune Foundation aims to provide research, care, and advocacy for people with genetic intellectual disabilities. The foundation currently operates the largest medical center for people with Down syndrome in the world, located in Paris.

Bella opened in December 2014 as a non-profit medical practice, founded by Chism and her daughter Abby Sinnett, both of whom are nurse practitioners, with the goal of taking a holistic approach to caring for women in mind, body, and spirit.

The practice is run in full alignment with Church teaching, although it attracts non-Catholics as well, particularly those drawn to the clinic’s natural and scientific approach. Some areas of focus for the clinic include obstetrics, annual exams, gynecology, infertility treatment, menopause care, and abortion pill reversal.

Over the years, the practice has expanded its scope to offer care for men and children as well as for women, with services such as well child check ups, management of chronic illness, and COVID-19 testing.

One of the important facets of Bella’s work is care for pregnant mothers, and Chism said they are already adept at meeting the medical needs of mothers who are carrying babies with Down syndrome.

The new partnership will enable Bella to care for adult patients who have Down syndrome, she said. Bella will help Lejeune learn more about how medicine in the United States works, while the Foundation’s knowledge of how to care for people with Down syndrome, passed on to Bella’s staff through mentorships, will greatly benefit Bella’s medical practice.

“We know that there is an identified need, and we are going to be there to fill it,” she said.

Chism said they expect to begin serving their first patients with Down syndrome on March 21, 2021. March 21 has been marked as World Down Syndrome Day by the United Nations since 2012.

Dr. Lejeune, a devout Catholic, discovered the genetic cause for Down syndrome— an extra copy of chromosome 21— in 1958.

He spent the rest of his life researching treatments and cures for the condition— also known as trisomy 21— advocating strongly against the use of prenatal testing and the abortion of unborn children who were found to have Down syndrome.

Chism commented that before Lejeune’s discovery, people generally thought there was  something “missing” from people with Down syndrome, but Lejeune found that there was “nothing missing at all.” Rather, “God chose to write a second sentence in the DNA of Down syndrome people.”

Kieth Mason, executive director of the Jerome Lejeune Foundation USA, told CNA that the foundation chose Bella as their first medical practice partner in the United States because of a shared reverence for the dignity of the human person.

Denver is already home to the Anna and John J. Sie Center for Down Syndrome at Children’s Hospital Colorado, as well as the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, a major advocacy organization.

Currently however, Mason said, there is no freestanding medical center in the United States for people with Down syndrome older than 21. Most specialized clinics— of which there are about a dozen throughout the country— are pediatric. The partnership with Bella will aim to change that, he said.

The Lejeune Foundation operates the largest DNA database in the world, Mason said, and they base their specialized care for people with Down syndrome on many years of research. Research by the foundation is likely to yield positive results not only for people with Down syndrome, but for all people, he noted.

For example, it is very common for people with Down syndrome to get Alzheimers, so the foundation is doing a lot of research into how to lessen the impact of the disease. On the other hand, women with Down syndrome appear to be protected from contracting breast cancer, so research into this area could benefit all humanity, he said.

Mason said he fully expects Bella to attract interest from patients across the country, just as their clinic in Paris attracts patients from across Europe and the world.

Mason’s daughter Maria, who has Down syndrome, will be one of the first people to receive specialized medical care at the Denver clinic, he said.

“As we care for people with Down syndrome, they care for us. They minister to our hearts and show us what true joy is,” he commented.

Lejeune was a personal friend of Pope St. John Paul II. In 1994, the pope named him the first president of the then brand-new Pontifical Academy for Life.

Lejeune died of lung cancer on Easter Saturday 1994. His canonization cause was opened in 2007.

Madame Berthe Lejeune, Dr. Lejeune’s widow, has said her husband was heartbroken that many doctors and governments used his discovery to “screen out” babies with Down syndrome, targeting them for abortion.

“He thought that all doctors would be happy to find research to cure them,” Madame Lejeune told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly in 2017.

“But sadly, all government[s], not only in France, said: oh, it’s a wonderful discovery. You can detect these little sick children before they are born, and so take them away with an abortion.”

Madame Lejeune died in May 2020, also of lung cancer.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has consistently criticized countries which provide for abortion on the basis of disability. In some countries, such as Denmark and Iceland, the abortion rate for babies found to have Down syndrome is close to 100%.

In the United States, there have been numerous attempts at the state level to ban abortions based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome.

Missouri lawmakers passed a law during 2019 that, in addition to banning all abortions after eight weeks, prohibits “selective” abortions following a medical diagnosis or disability such as Down syndrome, or on the basis of the race or sex of the baby. The law is currently blocked in the courts amid a legal challenge.

Ohio lawmakers attempted in 2017 to pass a ban on Down syndrome abortions, but a federal judge in 2019 blocked the legislation from taking effect.

Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Utah have all considered or passed similar bans.

At the federal level, the Down Syndrome Discrimination by Abortion Prohibition Act has been introduced in Congress, but has not yet been debated. The proposed law would ban doctors from “knowingly perform[ing] an abortion being sought because the baby has or may have Down syndrome.”


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Chesterton fans fundraising to create Father Brown mystery game

December 20, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Dec 20, 2020 / 05:22 am (CNA).- A group of Catholic board game enthusiasts has launched a new Kickstarter campaign to create a game based on the Father Brown series by G.K. Chesterton.

The game is called Father Brown Investigations: The Death of Sir Percy Coldwell. It is inspired by Chesterton’s fictional character, Father Brown, a priest who solves crimes by using deduction and his insight into the human person.

The idea was developed by Nikola Bolšec, the president of the Croatian Chesterton Club and an editor for Laudato TV. The Kickstarter campaign was launched on Dec. 8 with a goal of raising $30,000. Ten days later, the project had raised nearly $5,000.

The game is estimated to take about 45-90 minutes and is for up to 6 players. The object of the game is for players to compete as rival investigators to unveil the suspect before their opponents.

At the beginning of the game, players are confronted with a crime scene. Each player will then receive investigation resource cards depending on their character’s skills. The players will use these cards to acquire the proper evidence to solve the mystery.

While the goal of the game is to make a case against a suspect before other investigators, one of the players in the game could be playing as the arch-villain Flambeau. This player seeks to mislead his opponents and wins by preventing the other players from completing the investigation.

Among other perks, donors to the Kickstarter campaign can receive base or deluxe versions of the game, the chance to play a virtual game with the creators, and the opportunity to be incorporated as a character in the game.

The project has been supported by Jacek Malkowski, a Polish game designer who has created board games such as The Road to Bethlehem and Inspiration. The creative team also includes artist Matko Antolčić and graphic designer Iva Risek.

The marketing campaign is being led by Joseph Grabowski, president of the Philadelphia Chesterton Society. He said Chesterton fans everywhere have met the news with excitement.

He said Father Brown – whose character also featured in a popular BBC television show – has enduring appeal. He also expressed hope that a fun example of an admirable priest would help address negative stereotypes of clergy and the Catholic Church.

“We’re incredibly excited by the enthusiasm we’ve seen from Chesterton fans, and the wider world of board game lovers,” said Grabowski in a Dec. 16 press release.

“This is a game that can be played by anyone, regardless of background or faith, and regardless of whether they are familiar with Chesterton’s Father Brown fiction. Nevertheless, for us, as Catholics, we think this game is important and that the market is ripe for it.”

“The reputation of the Catholic priest in our society has taken quite a hit over the past two decades, and we think a character like Father Brown who is wholly admirable, virtuous, and wise is a needed remedy to so many bad perceptions of priests.”

 


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