Pope baptizes twins babies after successful separation surgery

Vatican City - 11.08.20.- With their heads wrapped in white bandages covering the wounds where they had once been joined, the two-year-old twins named Ervina and Prefina were baptized by Pope Francis on August 6 in the chapel of his residence, Saint Martha. The Holy Father baptizes twins after successful separation surgery.

The babies from the Central African Republic still are being held at the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesu pediatric hospital in Rome, a spokesman said Aug. 10. But their mother, identified only as Hermine, "really wanted the pope to baptize them.

A team of doctors, led by Dr. Carlo Marras, head of neurosurgery at the hospital, performed the final separation surgery June 5. The hospital held a press conference a month later to announce the successful separation of the conjoined twins and their progressive recovery.

[The twins babies are photographed after being baptized by Pope Francis in the chapel of his Vatican residence on August 6, 2020. Antoinette Montaigne, a former government official of the Central African Republic and a lawyer specializing in children´s rights, tweeted a photo of the Pope with the babies, their mother and, on the far right, Dr. Carlo Marras, director of the neurosurgery department at Bambino Gesu Hospital]

Dr. Marras attended the baptism performed by Pope Francis, according to a photo tweeted by Antoinette Montaigne, a former Central African Republic government official and child rights lawyer.

Pope Francis visited a hospital when he went to the Central African Republic in 2015; upon his return to Rome, he asked the Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome to start a project there.

Mariella Enoch, president of the hospital in Rome, met Hermine and her newborn twins during a visit to Bangui in July 2018 as part of the project to establish a pediatric medical center there, the hospital said. The twins and their mother arrived in Rome two months later. And after the surgery it was established that Pope Francis would baptize the twins.

[The extraordinary story of hope about the twins Ervina and Prefina, who were successfully separated at the Vatican Hospital @bambinogesu and later baptized by Pope Francis]

After more than a year of testing and studies, especially considering the number of veins the twins babies shared, they had their first surgery in May 2019; a second operation followed a month later. New veins and grafts were allowed to grow for a year before the final surgery to separate the girls, who had been joined at the back of the head. A press release from the hospital on July 7 said, "On June 29 they celebrated their second birthday by looking into each other´s eyes. Baptized later by Pope Francis, this family returns home happy and blessed.