Translation of the decree on the heroic virtues of Venerable Jérôme Lejeune

On January 21, 2021, Pope Francis approved the promulgation of a decree on the heroic virtues of Jérôme Lejeune (Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, New Catholic Encyclopedia, Science and its Times). The following year, Acta Apostolicae Sedis published the decree [vol. CXVI, n. 3 (March 4, 2022), pp. 352-354], but it was only recently posted on the Vatican website. I have translated it below.

Pope St. Paul VI appointed Lejeune to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1974. Twenty years later, Pope St. John Paul II named Lejeune the founding president of the Pontifical Academy for Life in 1994, shortly before his death from lung cancer.

Several texts by or about Lejeune appear on the Vatican website, including:

• “Respect for Life” (1988, p. 16)
• “Coeli beatus: Observations of a biologist” (1993)
• Pope St. John Paul II, Letter to the Archbishop of Paris on the death of Jérôme Lejeune (1994): French, English
• Commemoration of Professor Jérôme Lejeune (Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, 1995, pp. 52-69)

In 2005, Pope St. John Paul II paid passing tribute to Lejeune and other twentieth-century French Catholics in a letter to the French bishops. In 2019, Pope Francis wrote that the Pontifical Academy for Life “was created twenty-five years ago by Saint John Paul II at the prompting of the eminent scientist and Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune.”

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PARIS

Cause of the Beatification and Canonization of the Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune, Lay Member of Christ’s Faithful and Father of a Family (1926-1994)

A DECREE ON THE VIRTUES

“One sentence, only one, will form the reckoning of our life: as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me” (Mt. 25:40).

These words of the Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune continually impelled him in his state of life as a layman, spouse, and father of a family, and also in his work as a physician and scholar. Responding generously to the Gospel’s vocation to charity, he ministered to the suffering and gave diligent praise to the Creator for the beauty of human life.

The Servant of God was born in the municipality of Montrouge, near Paris, on June 13, 1926. After defending his doctoral thesis in medicine, he married Birthe Bringsted on May 1, 1952; he had five children with her. In the same year, he met children then called “mongoloids” and, after becoming acquainted with their needs and the needs of their families, he decided to spend his life and his work on their behalf.

He was appointed as an expert to a United Nations committee on the effect of atomic radiation. His work led to discovering the causes of trisomy 21, that is to say, Down syndrome. He treated more than nine thousand people from all over the world who were born suffering from the condition.

He was awarded very many distinctions and appointments, among which were the Kennedy Center Honors, the Allen [sic: the correct spelling is Allan] Memorial Award, the first chair of general genetics at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, director of the cytogenetics unit at Necker Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris, and also part of the Institute of Paris. He was named a member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences by St. Paul VI. St. John Paul II entrusted to him the establishment of the Pontifical Academy for Life, and from the year 1994, he was the first to hold its office of president.

The mystery of the Incarnate Word, which he contemplated, led the Servant of God to the exercise of the Christian virtues. By receiving the sacraments, by the reading of the Sacred Scriptures, and by devotion to the Virgin Mary, whose Rosary he prayed constantly, he sustained a firm faith. Refusing to divest himself of science, as if it were weaponry against Revelation, he showed how faith and science truly supplement each other with regard to the truth.

Hope animated his work, in that he considered physicians’ service of restoring others to health to be according to God’s precepts. Because of his Christian testimony, he had to labor in the face of a certain contempt and hostilities, especially when he persevered in defending children who were in danger from the menaces of eugenic proposals.

Moreover, in the very highest degree, the Servant of God singularly stood out in charity toward the suffering. He clearly and fruitfully experienced humility and heedlessness of self, with gifts of understanding and diligence. While he examined the suffering, those standing by were moved by his look, filled with mercy, and by his method, entirely humane. He was also able to encourage families toward hope and fortitude.

On April 3, 1994, on the Resurrection of the Lord [Easter Sunday], he surrendered his soul to God. His funeral rites in the Basilica of Notre-Dame of Paris attracted a great many people, and those requesting his Cause of Beatification and Canonization even at that time were by no means lacking. On August 2, 1997, St. John Paul II prayed at his tomb.

With his reputation of holiness proceeding for an enduring period of time, the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of the Servant of God was prepared. The diocesan Inquiry was held at the ecclesiastical Curia in Paris from July 28, 2007, to April 11, 2012; this Congregation for the Causes of Saints published the decree of juridical validity on February 21, 2014.

With the positio prepared, a discussion was held, according to the customary norms, on whether the Servant of God had exercised the Christian virtues. With the conclusion successful, a special meeting of theological consultors was held on October 8, 2019. The cardinal fathers and bishops, gathered in the ordinary session of January 12, 2021, declared that the Servant of God cultivated the theological and cardinal virtues and the virtues connected to them.

Finally, after an accurate report about all these things was made to the Supreme Pontiff Francis by the undersigned Cardinal Perfect, His Holiness, welcoming the determinations of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and regarding them approved, has declared today: that there is certainty about the theological virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity, both toward God and toward neighbor, and also about the cardinal virtues Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance, and the virtues connected to them, in a heroic degree, of the Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune, Lay Member of Christ’s Faithful and Father of a Family, in the cause and for the effect under discussion.

Moreover, the Supreme Pontiff ordered that this decree be made a matter of public authority and that it be recorded in the Acts of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Given at Rome, on January 21, in the year of the Lord 2021.

Marcello Cardinal Semeraro

Prefect

+Fabio Fabene

Titular Archbishop of Montefiascone, Secretary

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• Note: For more on the life, work, and faith of Lejeune, see Aude Dugast’s biography Jérôme Lejeune: A Man of Science and Conscience (Ignatius Press, 2021).