"Baby Joseph" Baptised: My Take

He's sick, and probably won't live. Even if he does, he'll still be sub-standard. He's got a defective central nervous system.

On strictly practical grounds, he should be killed. Or simply not fed, and allowed to die.

Happily, Catholics aren't 'practical.' Not that way. We're told that culling inferior specimens from the gene pool is wrong. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2268) Even if it's 'for the good of the race,' or because the person wouldn't enjoy a 'quality life style.'

The "he" in the first sentences is "Baby Joseph," Joseph Maraachli, an infant with Leigh's syndrome, or Leigh's Disease. Young Joseph is, from descriptions of the disorder, in for a rough life: and a short one.

Even so, I don't think it would be 'humane' to kill him now. I'll admit to a bias: I'm defective, too. Even so, on the whole I prefer being alive. Even with my flaws.

Not that the few decades I've been given is all there is to life. In a way, I can't die. Not permanently. (Catechism, 988-1014, 1020-1050) I've mentioned that before. (February 22, 2011)

Here's what got me started, from today's news:

"Godfather: Baby Joseph's baptism shows life's eternal destiny"
Benjamin Mann, CNA (Catholic News Agency) (March 25, 2011)

"The godfather of Baby Joseph Maraachli, whose fight for life has attracted international attention and support, says the terminally ill boy's recent baptism was a testimony to the eternal destiny of human life.

" 'It's a tremendous testimony to the sanctity of life,' said Jerry Horn, senior vice president of the Catholic pro-life ministry Priests For Life, who was Joseph's baptismal sponsor. 'So many people worked together in concert to bring him here, for a purpose greater than we could anticipate.'

" 'We were doing what we could to save the life of a child – which is why we do what we do, in the pro-life movement,' Horn reflected. 'But God's plan is eternal, and it goes far beyond ours.'

"The 13-month-old boy received the sacrament from a Catholic priest in St. Louis, Missouri on March 18, two days before receiving a tracheotomy on March 21...."

Related posts:

• "Joseph Maraachli and a Second Chance"
  (March 14, 2011)
• "Joseph Maraachli, Medical Ethics, and Making Sense"
  (February 28, 2011)
• "Remember: 'Clinically Dead' isn't 'Dead' "
  (October 22, 2010)
• "Baptism of Desire: Or, Two Thousand Years of Not Knowing Everything"
  (May 3, 2010)
• "Baptism of Desire: Or, Two Thousand Years of Not Knowing Everything"
  (May 3, 2010)

In the news:

• "Godfather: Baby Joseph's baptism shows life's eternal destiny"
  Benjamin Mann, CNA (Catholic News Agency) (March 25, 2011)

Background:

• "NINDS Leigh's Disease Information Page"
  National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health (last updated October 08, 2008)