In the prime of their lives, Elizabeth Ann Seton and the geneticist Jerome Lejeune each faced a life-changing question: What to do when following your conscience means losing friends, social position, and in the case of Lejeune, the highest honors for your life\u2019s work?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a choice every Christian faces to some extent, but some are asked to give everything: Martyrs decide to give their lives; Jerome Lejeune and Elizabeth Seton sacrificed their livelihoods and reputations.<\/p>\n
Como <\/strong>Mother Seton, Venerable Jerome Lejeune started out living a comfortable life, according to society\u2019s standards.<\/strong><\/p>\n Elizabeth Ann Bayley naci\u00f3 en el seno de una acomodada familia episcopaliana de Nueva York y se cas\u00f3 en la acomodada familia Seton. Ella y su marido ten\u00edan cinco hijos cuando falleci\u00f3 William Seton.<\/p>\n Poco despu\u00e9s, Isabel se encontr\u00f3 con la innegable verdad de la Iglesia cat\u00f3lica, en particular la Eucarist\u00eda. Se enfrent\u00f3 a una dif\u00edcil elecci\u00f3n.<\/p>\n Pod\u00eda negar su conciencia y permanecer en la Iglesia Episcopal, con toda la comodidad y el apoyo de sus amigos de toda la vida y de su comunidad.<\/p>\n O pod\u00eda seguir a su conciencia en una vida nueva e incierta como viuda convertida a la fe cat\u00f3lica.<\/p>\n Elizabeth chose her conscience. So did J\u00e9r\u00f4me Lejeune.<\/p>\n Nacido en un suburbio de Par\u00eds en 1926, Lejeune estudi\u00f3 medicina y se convirti\u00f3 en investigador del Centro Nacional de Investigaci\u00f3n Cient\u00edfica franc\u00e9s, alcanzando fama mundial por sus trabajos sobre los efectos de la radiaci\u00f3n at\u00f3mica en 1952.<\/p>\n Six years later, Lejeune\u2019s major breakthrough occurred.<\/strong><\/p>\n Mientras estudiaba muestras de tejido de un ni\u00f1o con s\u00edndrome de Down, Lejeune hizo un descubrimiento crucial.<\/p>\n Human beings have 23 pairs of chromosomes\u201446 in total. He and research partner Marthe Gautier discovered that patients suffering from what was then known as \u201cmongolism\u201d had an extra chromosome in the 21st pair.<\/p>\n Lejeune named the condition \u201cTrisomy 21\u201d and sought ways to cure or provide compassionate care for these patients and their families.<\/p>\n Aude Dugast, the postulator for Lejeune\u2019s cause, said, \u201cHe loved his patients. There were so many mothers who said they were very moved when they met him the first time and Lejeune looked at their son or daughter, and they saw that he looked at them with so much love in their eyes that they were very surprised, because he was a very famous professor.\u201d<\/p>\n For many, she added, \u201cIt was the first time they saw someone who was full of love for the child, and each time it was a new start for the family.\u201d<\/p>\n Honors poured in for Lejeune\u2019s groundbreaking work. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy awarded him the Premio Kennedy.<\/em> En 1964, la prestigiosa Facultad de Medicina de la Universidad de Par\u00eds cre\u00f3 una c\u00e1tedra especial para \u00e9l.<\/p>\n M\u00e1s tarde, en 1969, su trabajo fue reconocido con el premio William Allen Memorial de la Sociedad Americana de Gen\u00e9tica Humana, la m\u00e1s alta distinci\u00f3n disponible para un genetista.<\/p>\n But Lejeune\u2019s acceptance speech for the award would change everything.<\/strong><\/p>\n Lejeune had seen\u2014to his horror\u2014that his discovery had an unintended tragic consequence.<\/p>\n Al poder identificar la trisom\u00eda 21 antes del nacimiento, los m\u00e9dicos empezaron a realizar pruebas a los ni\u00f1os no nacidos para detectar la enfermedad, lo que permit\u00eda abortar a los que daban positivo.<\/p>\n Dr. Pilar Calva Mercado, who studied under Lejeune in the 1980s, remarked, \u201cI didn\u2019t go to him because he was very Catholic, but because he was very good at clinical genetics.\u201d<\/p>\n Pero una vez que conoci\u00f3 a Lejeune, sus convicciones \u00e9ticas influyeron profundamente en ella.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he told me why he wouldn\u2019t do prenatal diagnosis, it convinced me,\u201d dijo<\/a> reporter John Burger. \u201cHe told me he could not collaborate with a death sentence\u2026 When one cannot do anything to cure a sickness, you have to work more to relieve the suffering, but not to kill the patient. That was something that completely changed my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Lejeune expressed the same viewpoint to the American Genetics Society during his acceptance speech. \u201cShould we capitulate in the face of our own ignorance and propose to eliminate those we cannot help?\u201d he asked in his speech. \u201cOur duty has always been not to inflict the sentence but to try to commute the pain.\u201d<\/p>\n The remarks were not well received. That night, he wrote to wife, \u201cToday I lost my Nobel Prize.\u201d<\/p>\n Lejeune ten\u00eda raz\u00f3n. La respuesta a su valiente postura fue r\u00e1pida y dura.<\/strong><\/p>\n Mark Bradford, the Venerable J\u00e9r\u00f4me Lejeune Fellow at the Word On Fire Institute, described the fallout:<\/p>\n \u201cThe confrontations Lejeune had with the cultural elites of his time were brutal and they severely punished him personally, professionally, and financially,\u201d he said. \u201cEven his young children weren\u2019t unscathed. One day walking home from school they saw spray painted on a wall, \u2018Dr. Lejeune and his little monsters must die!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Lejeune respondi\u00f3 con entereza y perseverancia, dedic\u00e1ndose con a\u00fan m\u00e1s pasi\u00f3n a sus pacientes, su investigaci\u00f3n y su fe.<\/p>\n Le siguieron otros descubrimientos e innovaciones. En la d\u00e9cada de 1980, Lejeune fue elegido miembro de la Academia Francesa de Ciencias Morales y Pol\u00edticas y de la Academia Nacional de Medicina, y en 1993 recibi\u00f3 el Premio Griffuel por sus decisivos trabajos sobre las anomal\u00edas cromos\u00f3micas en el c\u00e1ncer.<\/p>\n As science advanced, Lejeune intensified his defense of human dignity alongside the Catholic Church. Calva recalls that he would \u201ctake these mysterious trips\u201d to Rome. In 1974, he became a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. 20 years later, in 1994, Lejeune died from cancer, weeks after his nomination as the first President of the Pontifical Academy for Life.<\/p>\n St. Elizabeth Ann Seton\u2019s reaction to opposition offers the same lesson.<\/strong><\/p>\n Many friends and family members were aghast at the newly widowed mother\u2019s decision to convert to Catholicism.<\/p>\n Elizabeth respondi\u00f3 con alegr\u00eda y honestidad, dedicando sus talentos de todo coraz\u00f3n a su vocaci\u00f3n, convirti\u00e9ndose finalmente en una fundadora religiosa y pionera del sistema de escuelas parroquiales de Estados Unidos.<\/p>\n Muri\u00f3 con palabras de devoci\u00f3n en los labios, al igual que Lejeune.<\/p>\n Lejeune remained devoted to his Down Syndrome patients to the end of his life. \u201cI was the doctor who was supposed to cure them, and now I am leaving,\u201d he lamented. \u201cI feel like I am abandoning them.\u201d<\/p>\n But he wasn\u2019t. He died on Easter Sunday, celebrating the One who gave everything in surrender to the Father, whose Resurrection reveals that God never abandons us.<\/p>\n Lejeune\u2019s life, like Mother Seton\u2019s, teaches the lesson that the honors that ultimately matter come from God.<\/p>\n TOM HOOPES<\/strong>,\u00a0autor m\u00e1s reciente de El Rosario de San Juan Pablo II, es escritor residente en el Benedictine College de Kansas, donde imparte clases. Es anfitri\u00f3n de La extraordinaria Stor<\/a>y podcast sobre la vida de Cristo. Su libro Lo que dijo realmente el Papa Francisco<\/a> ya est\u00e1 disponible en Audible<\/a>. Antiguo reportero en la zona de Washington, D.C., fue secretario de prensa del Presidente del Comit\u00e9 de Medios y Arbitrios de la C\u00e1mara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos y pas\u00f3 10 a\u00f1os como editor del peri\u00f3dico National Catholic Register y de la revista Faith & Family. Su trabajo aparece con frecuencia en el Register, Aleteia y Catholic Digest. Vive en Atchison, Kansas, con su esposa, April, y tiene nueve hijos.<\/em><\/p>\n Imagen por cortes\u00eda de la Fundaci\u00f3n Jerome Lejeune EE.UU.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n