Pope Francis is praying for baby Indi Gregory and her family as the critically ill British infant’s life support was withdrawn this weekend by a United Kingdom court order. Source: CNA.
The Pope “embraces the family of little Indi Gregory, her father and mother, prays for them and for her, and turns his thoughts to all the children around the world in these same hours who are living in pain or risking their lives because of disease and war,” a Vatican statement said on Saturday.
Indi Gregory, born in February and baptised in September, suffers from a rare degenerative mitochondrial disease and has been receiving life-sustaining treatment on a ventilator at the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham.
After England’s High Court ruled that it was in the child’s “best interests” to be taken off life support against her parents’ wishes, the Italian government granted the critically ill child Italian citizenship on November 6 and agreed to cover the cost of her medical treatment at the Vatican’s pediatric hospital.
The baby’s parents repeatedly appealed in UK courts to be able to take her to Rome for treatment but lost their legal battle, with the second-highest court in the UK ruling on Friday that the baby’s life support be removed “immediately”.
The BBC is reporting this morning that Indi’s life support was removed on Sunday.
The Bambino Gesù, which is run by the Vatican, has offered to treat other terminally ill British infants in the past, such as Alfie Evans in 2018 and Charlie Gard in 2017, both of whom were ultimately denied the chance to travel to Italy by UK courts and died days after being removed from life support.
FULL STORY
Pope Francis prays for infant Indi Gregory as life support set to be removed in UK (By Courtney Mares, CNA)
Indi Gregory: Life-support withdrawn from critically ill baby (BBC News)
