Mr and Mrs Evans; Baby Alfie (inset) The father of a 23-month old boy who has been at the centre of a life support battle privately met with the Pope today, pleading for “asylum” in Italy so that his ill son may receive alternative medical care, rather than be euthanised.
Tom Evans and his partner, Kate James, are battling with Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool and English courts to continue to keep their toddler, Alfie, who suffers from a rare degenerative brain disease, on life support.
Mr Evans met with the Pope Francis for approximately 20 minutes according to the Italian Catholic news site, “La Nuova Bussola Quotidiana” which had one of its reporters accompany him at the meeting.
“If Your Holiness helps our child, Your Holiness will be potentially saving the future for our children in the U.K., especially the disabled. We pray the problem we are facing is solved peacefully and respectfully as no child deserves this,” Evans said in a statement he personally delivered to the Pope today.
The private meeting came before the Pope appealed publicly again for appropriate care and respect for 23-month-old Alfie Evans.
“I would like to affirm and vigorously uphold that the only master of life — from its beginning to natural end — is God,” the Pope said at the end of his weekly general audience.
“Our duty is to do everything to safeguard life,” he said before leading the thousands of people in the square in a moment of prayer and reflection.
He asked those at the audience to pray that the lives of all people, especially Alfie, be respected.
Gently rubbing a small green rosary between his fingers, Mr Evans, who is Catholic, told reporters that his son is being “held hostage” at the hospital, and he and his wife are “being treated like criminals and prisoners.”
He also said he thought the meeting with the Pope went very well. “I’ve seen the love and the care and the emotion in his eyes. I’m so fortunate to have had that opportunity” to meet the Pope and talk about saving his son, he told Catholic News Service.
CNS