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Mickey Bruns is an altar server at Ss. Simon and Jude Cathedral.

One of my first story leads after joining The Catholic Sun staff was a profile piece of Mickey Bruns. While  I loved the idea of featuring an adult altar server who has Down syndrome — I spent six years in the ministry myself until I was deemed “too old” at age 16 — I could never find a timely angle for the story.

So there it sat in my “back burner” file until Joyce Coronel started up her popular “Your Catholic Neighbor” series. Bruns was the perfect candidate.

And Joyce told Bruns’ story far better than I ever could. She also wrote a moving column about him in the same issue (scroll to Oct. 4, 2007: Foolish pursuit of the ‘perfect’ baby).

So when I skimmed national Catholic headlines recently, a story about international adoptions of Down syndrome babies jumped out at me. I knew the story without having to read it.

Reece Roberts is the inspiration for Reece's Rainbow. The organization helps adopt Down symdrome babies worldwide into U.S. families. (CNS photo. Courtesy of Reece's Rainbow)

The Maryland-based organization exists to match Down syndrome babies worldwide with U.S. families who raise them as their own. Thus through Reece’s Rainbow, babies who already survived possible abortion — some 90 percent of pregnant women who learn their unborn baby has Down syndrom choose to abort – are also saved from life in an institution.

Bruns was saved from such a lifestyle and I know that many who know Bruns’ story are grateful for that. More than 175 Down syndrome children from 32 countries who have been adopted through Reece’s Rainbow since June 2006 have also been saved.

The organization also works to help birth families who choose to keep their children, according to the article, by helping them begin their own Down syndrome associations that fight for the rights and inclusion of special-needs children in their own countries.