Vatican City, Nov 11, 2023 / 11:06 am
Pope Francis is praying for Indi Gregory and her family as the critically ill British infant’s life support is set to be removed this weekend by a U.K. court order.
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 Nov. 11.
Indi Gregory, born in February and baptized 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, England.
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 Nov. 6 and agreed to cover the cost of her medical treatment at the Vatican’s pediatric hospital.