There Will Surely Be a Divine Reckoning for Baby Indi’s Death
There Will Surely Be a Divine Reckoning for Baby Indi’s Death
As with the resurrection of Jesus, the devil got something he wasn’t bargaining for.
E. Christian Brugger - NOV 15, 2023
There’s not much to add to the tragic story of the British health service’s fatal abandonment of Baby Indi Gregory, except that it’s not the end of the story — not for Indi, not for her dad and sister, and not for the reprehensible English judicial system.
As has been widely reported, the little 8-month-old had a rare condition called mitochondrial disease. Her parents wished for everything possible to be done to treat the condition. The doctors at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, England, said there was nothing more they could do. When Indi’s parents fought back, the Royal Courts of Justice predictably sided with the hospital.
Then something unexpected happened. The Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome offered to treat baby Indi, saying that all hope was not lost. And remarkably, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni granted little Indi emergency Italian citizenship to facilitate her medical transfer to Italy.
However, Lord Justice Peter Jackson of the English Court of Appeal, citing a “best interests” of the child standard, blocked Indi’s parents from accepting Italy’s offer, effectively condemning the child to death.
Indi’s life support was removed late Sunday night and she died early Monday morning.
It has also been reported that Indi’s dad, Dean Gregory, was moved by his bitter experience with the English court system to have little Indi baptized. What may have been missed is the fierce spiritual warfare surrounding his decision.
During an interview with the Italian newspaper the Daily Compass, he admitted, “I am not religious and I am not baptized,” but when in court, he said, “It felt like I had been dragged to hell. … It was like the devil was there.”
Divine grace then assisted the thought: “If hell exists then heaven must exist.” And a further thought: “If there’s a devil then God must exist … and I want Indi to go to heaven.”
After a Christian associate told him that baptism protects us from hell and the devil and opens the door to heaven, Gregory decided to have Indi baptized. In addition, he too, along with his other daughter, requested baptism: “We want to be protected in this life and go to heaven.”
An extraordinary example of the mysterious interaction between human experience, saving grace and free choice.
As for the Father of Death and those who did his bidding? They got what they wanted. Little Indi is dead. But as with the resurrection of Jesus, the devil got something he wasn’t bargaining for.
Baby Indi’s soul, baptized and sinless, is in the Kingdom viewing the face of God and awaiting reunion with her resurrected body and her beloved family. Her dad and sister seem set on the saving path of Christian faith.
And Judge Jackson? Well, for him, and for his defenders, and for us all, there will be a divine reckoning, to be sure.
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E. Christian Brugger E. Christian Brugger is a moral theologian living in Front Royal, Virginia.
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/baby-indi-death-divine-reckoning