‘Thanks to John Paul II, my father always kept hope alive,’ Jérôme Lejeune’s daughter says
The article recounts how Jérôme Lejeune, the discoverer of the cause of Down syndrome, maintained hope during difficult times thanks to his friendship with Pope John Paul II, who appointed him president of the Pontifical Academy for Life. Lejeune faced ostracism after France's abortion law, losing funding and support, but the Pope’s encouragement helped him persevere. The story highlights a personal anecdote of the assassination attempt on John Paul II, during which Lejeune and the Pope shared a conversation about life and support for the disabled. Lejeune died in 1994; his canonization process began in 2007, and Pope Francis declared him venerable in 2024.
3 months ago
Jérôme Lejeune’s daughter, Karin Lejeune, recalled how her father’s friendship with Pope John Paul II sustained his hope during France’s hostile anti‑abortion climate, and she highlighted the recent audience with Pope Leo XIV that honored Lejeune’s legacy. 1 2
On 22 June 2026, Pope Leo XIV met members of the Lejeune Foundation to mark the 100th anniversary of Jérôme Lejeune’s birth, the French geneticist who identified the cause of Down syndrome. 1
Lejeune served as the first president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, a role appointed by Pope John Paul II in 1994. Their bond deepened after a shared lunch at the Vatican on 13 May 1981, just hours before the pope survived an assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square. 1 2
Karin explained that after France enacted a restrictive abortion law, Lejeune endured social ostracism, loss of research funding, and marginalisation by the Church, scientific community, and “political‑correctness” establishment. She credited his friendship with John Paul II for keeping his spirit alive during that “real Calvary.” 1 2
Jérôme Lejeune died of cancer in April 1994 at age 67. His cause for canonisation opened in 2007, the diocesan phase concluded in 2012, and Pope Francis declared him Venerable in January 2024 after recognising his heroic virtues. 1 2
Karin described her father as a tender, always‑available father whose “extraordinary, kind gaze” defined his presence. She recalled the warm, open home he shared with his Danish wife, Birthe, at 31 Rue Galande in Paris, where friends were always welcome. 1 2*
The Catholic Church’s stance on life amid scientific advances
Scientific advances have dramatically increased what human beings can do with bodies and life. The Catholic Church’s stance is not that science should be rejected, but that science must be governed by a moral vision of the human person—one grounded in the inviolable dignity of every human being from conception, and in the spiritual meaning of life. In short: biomedical progress is welcomed when it serves the human person; it is resisted when it instrumentalizes human life, especially the weakest.
The Church holds that “science and technology” are real goods when ordered to the integral development of the person and the good of all, yet they cannot provide their own moral justification simply by being effective, useful, or possible. According to the Church, technical capacity must be judged by moral law, because the question is not only what can be done, but what ought to be done in light of human dignity.
A central claim in Catholic teaching is that every human person—through bodily life—possesses anthropological dignity grounded in the unity of body and spirit. Pope John Paul II explains that the genome “conditions membership in the human species” and has a determining influence from conception to natural death; therefore the Church defends human dignity “from the very start of his existence.”
Because the person is not merely material, the Church insists that dignity has a spiritual basis: the human genome is described as possessing “anthropological dignity,” “which has its basis in the spiritual soul that pervades it and gives it life.”
The Church repeatedly connects the right to life to the whole truth about the human person—body, soul, and final destiny. For example, the teaching on religious freedom is framed as rooted in the person’s dignity and linked to “the sacred right to a full life, also from a spiritual standpoint.”
Likewise, the Church highlights the special moral gravity of harm done to those at the weakest and most defenseless stage: Benedict XVI notes that when people are “selected, abandoned, killed or used as mere ‘biological material,’” it becomes clear they are no longer treated as “someone” but as “something,” which “call[s] into question the very concept of human dignity.”
The Church does not treat scientific research as a blank instrument. The key moral issue is that science and technology require moral criteria in order to have genuine human meaning. The Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin states:
“It would… be illusory to claim that scientific research and its applications are morally neutral.”
And it adds that one cannot derive moral guidance from “mere technical efficiency,” or from usefulness “at the expense of others,” or from “prevailing ideologies.”
The same instruction offers a direct warning: “science without conscience can only lead to man’s ruin,” and calls for wisdom so discoveries can be “humanized.”
Pope Francis similarly teaches that:
“not everything technically possible or doable is thereby ethically acceptable”
So the Church’s stance is simultaneously hopeful and critical: it praises research that cures and serves, while rejecting the idea that the mere fact that something is feasible makes it acceptable.
A further concern is what Pope Francis describes as the “technocratic system based on the criterion of efficiency.” He warns that such a system can “give life to the logic of the devices that decide its value,” reversing the proper role of technology.
In this view, the moral failure is not only the wrong intervention itself, but the cultural shift that treats persons as material for devices, systems, or policies.
When it comes to genetics, the Church does not oppose knowledge. In fact, it recognizes “the positive value” of understanding the genome for “preventive health measures,” diagnosis, and treatment of genetically based diseases—when applied without undue risk.
But moral limits are clear: Pope John Paul II states it is unlawful to intervene on the human genome unless it is “aimed at the good of the person, understood as a unity of body and spirit.”
And it is also “not lawful to discriminate between human subjects on the basis of possible genetic defects.”
The Pontifical Academy for Life warns that knowledge used to stigmatize or discriminate against those with pathogenic genes (or susceptibility to disease) is “morally unacceptable.”
This is part of the Church’s broader rejection of a worldview in which some lives are treated as less worthy because they do not meet biological or social standards.
In the Church’s moral reasoning about embryonic stem cells and cloning, the decisive point is anthropology: the embryo is not treated as mere biological matter.
A Pontifical Academy for Life declaration states that, on biological analysis, the living human embryo “from the moment of the union of the gametes—[is] a human subject with a well defined identity,” and begins “coordinated, continuous and gradual development,” so it cannot be treated as “a simple mass of cells.”
From this, the moral conclusion follows: the embryo has a right to its own life, and therefore “every intervention which is not in favour of the embryo” violates that right.
The same declaration answers directly whether it is morally licit to engage in “therapeutic cloning” by producing cloned human embryos and destroying them to obtain embryonic stem cells: the answer is negative.
It similarly states that using embryonic stem cells derived through practices that involve proximate material cooperation in producing and manipulating human embryos is answered negatively.
A key moral argument is also stated: “A good end does not make right an action which in itself is wrong.”
At the same time, the Church encourages research that respects the person. Benedict XVI notes that the Church “appreciates and encourages the progress of the biomedical sciences” with examples such as “somatic stem cells” and treatments aimed to restore fertility or cure genetic diseases.
The Pontifical Academy for Life notes that the possibility of using adult stem cells to achieve similar goals indicates a “more reasonable and human method” for making progress.
The Church critiques cultural climates that treat prenatal life as something to be selected. The Pontifical Academy for Life describes concerns about the “growth and diffusion of a new selective eugenics,” which “leads to the suppression of embryos and fetuses affected by some disease.”
The Church argues that legal norms alone cannot secure dignity. Pope Francis teaches that “purely legal regulations and technical support cannot, by themselves, ensure conditions” consonant with the dignity of the person; what is also required is “the adequate support of a responsible human closeness.”
The Pontifical Academy for Life states that scientists in biomedicine are called to work for the “well-being and health of human beings,” but the “ultimate aim” must be “the integral good of man,” and the means must respect the inalienable dignity and right to life of every person.
Across these teachings, the Catholic stance on life amid scientific advances can be summarized as follows:
The Church therefore calls for conscience-guided progress, where the marvels of research are ordered to healing and care rather than to selection, manipulation, or the reduction of persons to “biological material.”