Pope Leo XIV Warns Against Algorithms Deciding Human Lives

On Monday at the Vatican, Pope Leo XIV strongly defended the dignity of human life at every stage and warned of the risks of modern medicine if it is subject to purely technical or utilitarian criteria. During an audience with members of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, according to EWTN News, he stated that no doctor should presume to decide the fate of an embryo or an elderly person based on laboratory algorithms.

“Medicine must never become a servant of programmed death”, the Holy Father emphasized.

The meeting took place on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of French professor Jérôme Lejeune, the father of modern genetics, who discovered the genetic cause of Down syndrome in 1958. Although his discovery brought him international recognition, he was later deeply troubled when the abortion industry began to exploit his findings by targeting unborn children with this condition.

Lejeune vehemently rejected this approach and publicly condemned it as “chromosomal racism”, for which he faced isolation in certain scientific circles. The Pope recalled that Lejeune dedicated his entire life to sick children, whom he called “the poorest of the poor,” and quoted his statement: “Medicine is hatred of disease and love for the patient.”

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