Compatible with life: the joy of John Paul Hauser

07/09/24 • 36 min

What does it mean for a baby to be “incompatible with life?” Even before a baby is born, doctors are doing tests, reviewing ultrasounds, and monitoring the mother closely for unexpected results or problems. If the unborn baby has too serious a condition, parents might be told by doctors that their baby is “incompatible with life.” That’s to say, it’s not expected to live long, if at all, and parents can face a choice of life or death for this person they’ve not yet met.

After doctors identified Trisomy 13 in John Paul Hauser, his parents were coached to consider having an abortion. Despite having this major genetic corruption, and a life that might last for minutes if at all, John Paul's parents chose to give him that life. And live he did.

/// Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. This episode features Tami and Tracy Hauser, and Barb Baxter, the parents and godmother of John Paul Hauser.

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The reflection of John Paul Hauser's joy still radiates from cherished family videos. In one clip, he's sitting on his mom's lap as she claps his hands in tune with "The Hokey Pokey." "The Hokey Pokey" is one of those universal songs to get kids moving, and be silly and joyful. John Paul’s condition meant he experienced the hokey pokey and so many things differently than most kids, but he still enjoyed them. He didn’t speak, but he communicated in his own way. He played. He enjoyed music—Schubert’s Ave Maria was a favorite.

It’s important we start with some details of John Paul Hauser the person, because there was a chance we would never have met him. Tami and her husband Tracy made the choice to give John Paul a chance to live, even though he would face great difficulty.

"They noticed some some things looked abnormal on the ultrasound and then they sent us in for more testing," Tami says. "They told us that he had this condition called Trisomy 13, which is a corruption of all the chromosomes, and it's the most severe corruption, and that they considered it "incompatible with life." They told us that he wasn't probably going to make it to birth and if he did he would most likely only live like a few minutes or maybe at best a few hours after birth." Tami and Tracy faced this news with shock, devastation, and fear.

"The very next thing out of their mouth is that we should have an abortion. I just remember like thinking, I just I couldn't believe that they were telling us to have, they were coaching us to have an abortion. I was always like, I didn't realize it went like this. I just thought people left these appointments and then discerned and decided to have an abortion, but here were just being advised ... and more than once," Tami continues. "Finally we just said this baby is not going to die at our hands and you know for us it just wasn't even a decision, like it was just like no. This is...that we would never end our child's life."

/// Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. This episode features Tami and Tracy Hauser, and Barb Baxter, the parents and godmother of John Paul Hauser.

Previous Episode

A falling crucifix and a crisis of faith

To hear of a man crushed by a giant crucifix, it should rightly give us pause. Years ago I heard of a man who prayed before a statue of Christ on the cross every day, asking God’s mercy for the man’s wife who was battling cancer. His wife made it through, and after enduring the pain and emotional exhaustion of that fight, the man wanted to clean the statue in appreciation. Except, the statue fell on him, leading to his leg being amputated. The church raised money and donations for the man, but he ended up suing. ///

Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. This episode features a news report from 2012, and reflections on what a falling crucifix might mean (if anything at all.)

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Before we get too deep into this wild story, I want to express sympathy for the people involved. To battle cancer, to believe prayers have been answered, to lose a leg in an accident with a falling crucifix—it’s all a bit much and demands some thoughtfulness.

The story from 2012 originally came from local TV station CBS 2 in New York, about David Jimenez. Jimenez’s lawyer reiterates that his client believed his devotion to the crucifix was responsible for his wife being cured, so he asked permission to clean the crucifix since it was seen as having been neglected.

The 600-pound statue was supported only by one screw in its base, the lawyer says. The church gathered donations of goods and money, but Jimenez filed suit to try to expedite a settlement from the archdiocese’s insurance company, looking for 3-million-dollars.

It’s a wild story that not surprisingly attracted naysayers in the comments saying it was clearly a message or a bad omen. For me, it sparked a number of questions: is it accurate to say the man prayed to the crucifix, and that he felt the object had power? Does it mean something if a crucifix falls down? What is this story saying, or not, about faith, and about God?

The headline proclaims Mr. Jimenez as “Deeply religious;” his devotion to the cross is mentioned throughout. Those faith-skeptics might proclaim: Ahh, see what good faith is? See what praying leads to? It did not help you? Where was God? I do not share those skeptical views of faith.

But I did, briefly, go down a rabbit hole. While a crucifix is a holy symbol, it is not to be prayed to directly, similar to statues and icons. The crucifix is an object to remind the believer, or focus the believer’s attention on God. By praying to an object, as the awkward syntax in the news story presents, the crucifix has itself become an idol. There’s also a difference between showing reverence to an image of Christ, for example, and praying to an object—the reverence is shown in respect to Christ, and not because it’s a thing.

The cynical Christian might say, “Well, so the man prayed to an object, and thus was taught a lesson by God.” Despite graphic episodes in the Old Testament, I tend to think God’s new covenant makes clear he is not in the smiting business, and he is a loving God. In the view of Christianity, it is through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection that man is saved, and provided the Holy Spirit to discern manifestations of God within us and others.

If we take the news story at face value, that Mr. Jimenez is a ‘deeply religious’ man, and he has chosen to be devoted to God, then why is his leg crushed? It may not be satisfying, but no one on this side of Heaven can know why this happened as it did. We do not know fully where we are going in life, the lessons we must learn, the spiritual growth we must experience. We do not know if opportunities for charity are at first blurred by pain and what we see as tragedy. And this goes for anyone, facing anything in life.

Do I find it good that this man has lost his leg? No, of course not. But we cannot know why this happened. It is through faith we seek the strength to believe in the plan set out long before we came into existence on this Earth. And it is in faith that we seek strength to stay the course when met with epic sadness, or seemingly insurmountable pain.

At times, I don’t think we know how much we can handle, or how much more we must grow or experience. We do not know everything. Jesus recognized the difficulty of our having true faith in what cannot be known, referencing the power afforded by faith only as bi...

Next Episode

The tomb of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and the faith of Mohawk Catholics

It’s been 12 years since St. Kateri Tekakwitha ("The Lily of the Mohawks") was declared a saint by the Catholic church, in October 2012. She was a Mohawk/Algonquin woman who lived in the late 17th century in present-day New York and Quebec, declaring herself a virgin for Christ. Her sainthood has sparked both pride and soul-searching within and beyond Canada’s First Nations. St. Kateri’s earthly remains are entombed at the National Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine, in St. Francis Xavier Mission Catholic Church in Kahnawake, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River near Montreal.

The church is not far from the Kateri school and Kateri Memorial Hospital—visible reminders that she lived here, or nearby, in a Catholic community before her death at age 24.

Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. In this episode we are not retelling St. Kateri’s life story, but rather we’re bringing you voices from a few members of the present-day Catholic community in Kahnawake: Beverly Anna Sky Dolormier, a volunteer named Marian, and Fr. Richard Saint-Louis.

Before we explore St. Kateri, we need to be transparent: there are many serious issues that may cloud discussions involving the Catholic Church that we won’t fully be able to explore. The Church has a complicated history and present here. Jesuits, known as the Black Robes, evangelized as European powers colonized North America. Over centuries, the systems put in place to govern these territories have wrested ancestral lands, water rights, and more, from the indigenous peoples. Church-affiliated residential schools separated children from their families and culture in the name of assimilation. Despite public apologies from Pope Francis, the reports of abuses committed at those schools have left societal wounds that, for some, may never fully heal.

But for some Catholics, faith bears witness to their resilience.