Pope Francis kisses a young child with Down syndrome in Rome. (Courtesy of the Cassidy family.)
Lynn Cassidy remembers exactly where she was when the doctor called. The Arizona mom was 11 weeks pregnant and the doctors had just done a barrage of tests on her. And now, as she sat in the parking lot of a grocery story in Pasadena, Calif., she picked up the phone and heard the news.
Her baby was sick. Most likely Down syndrome.
Cassidy, a lifelong Catholic along with her husband, Scott, was hopeful. Doctors had once told the Phoenix couple that another child of theirs would be born with Down syndrome — but the child had arrived as healthy as healthy can be. But this time, Cassidy, who was by then well into her 40s, birthed Ave. She was beautiful. Blond hair. Blue eyes. And with Down syndrome.
That was in January 2014. There were more talks with doctors. Ave had problems with her eyes and her ears and, most troubling, her heart. The medical team had located two holes in her heart. Although the child didn’t seem to exhibit any problems as a result of those holes, the Cassidy family was nervous.
Still, Easter was right around the corner. “I wanted to show my children Catholic traditions in other parts of the world,” Cassidy said. So the family took a trip to Italy. Their trip coincided with the canonization of John Paul II, and the crowds were enormous that week. The Wednesday of that trip, she went to St. Peter’s Square.
She had heard — as millions of Americans also have learned during Pope Francis’s trip through the United States — that the pontiff likes to kiss and bless babies. “And the birthrate is very low in Italy,” she said, adding that she didn’t see too many babies in the square that day. She didn’t know what to expect, but she was hopeful.
Then Francis arrived in his popemobile, and, “like ‘The Lion King,'” her husband thrust the baby into the arms of one of Francis’s security officers. Ave, who slept through the whole thing, was held up to the pope, who kissed her on the head. He asked how old she was and her name.
Scott Cassidy yelled: “She has two holes in her heart!”
Lynn Cassidy doesn’t know whether the pope heard her husband. She thinks it’s possible. And to the faithful, what happened next would seem to add credence to those suspicions.
“Doctors don’t talk about miracles,” she said. “Even if they’re faithful, they don’t talk about it like that.” But Cassidy didn’t know what else to call it.
She said a month after returning from their sojourn to Rome, her husband and she took young Ave to the cardiologist. One of the holes had completely closed. And the other hole was half the size. The problems with her heart had diminished to such an extent that the doctor told her not to worry about bringing her back for another checkup for two years.
“I believe in miracles,” Cassidy said. “And I do believe that God can act through the pope’s blessings in miraculous ways.”
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