Vatican City, 4 March 2015 (VIS) –
Grandparents were the focus of this Wednesday's general audience in
St. Peter's Square. Continuing his catechesis on the family, today
the Pope considered the difficult current situation faced by the
elderly, commenting that next week he will present a more positive
view of the vocation that corresponds to this stage in life.
Thanks to advances in medical care, the
Holy Father observed, life expectancy has increased and there is a
far greater number of elderly people, but nevertheless society has
not adapted to this change, and has not responded by creating space
for them, with the respect and consideration their fragility and
dignity demand. “When we are young, we are induced to ignore old
age, as if it were an illness to keep at bay; however, once we become
old, especially if we are poor, ill and alone, we experience the gaps
in a society programmed for efficiency, which as a consequence
ignores the elderly”.
He recalled the words of Benedict XVI
during his visit to a residential home for the elderly: “The
quality of a society … is also judged by how it treats elderly
people and by the place it gives them in community life”, and
exclaimed, “A civilisation can sustain itself if it respects
wisdom, the wisdom of the elderly. On the contrary, a civilisation in
which there is no place for the elderly or in which they are
discarded because they create problems … carries the virus of
death”.
He continued, “In the west, scholars
present the current century as 'the century of old age: there are
fewer children and an increase in elderly people. This imbalance is a
great challenge to contemporary society. And yet, a certain culture
of profit insists on making the elderly appear to be a burden, an
extra weight. They are not only unproductive; they are an
encumbrance, and are to be discarded. And discarding them is sinful.
We do not dare to say this openly, but it happens. There is something
cowardly in this inurement to throwaway culture. We want to remove
our growing fear of weakness and vulnerability, but in this way we
increase in the elderly the anguish of being inadequately supported
and abandoned”.
Francis recalled that during his
ministry in Buenos Aires he had first hand experience of these
problems. “The elderly are abandoned, and not only to material
precariousness. They are abandoned as a result of our selfish
inability to accept their limits, which reflect our own limits, in
the many difficulties that they must overcome nowadays to survive in
a civilization that does not allow them to participate, to have their
say, or to be referents according to a consumerist model in which
'only the young can be useful and can enjoy themselves'. The elderly
should instead be, for all of society, the reserve of wisdom of our
population. How easy it is for our conscience to slumber when there
is no love”.
In the tradition of the Church, there
is “a legacy of wisdom that has always promoted a culture of
closeness to the elderly, a willingness to provide affectionate and
supportive accompaniment in this final stage of life. This tradition
is rooted in the Sacred Scripture”. Therefore, “the Church cannot
and does n wish to conform to a mentality of impatience, far less
indifference and disdain, with regard to old age. We must reawaken
our collective sense of gratitude, appreciation and hospitality that
enable the elderly to feel like a living part of the community. The
elderly are men and women, mothers and fathers who have walked the
same road before us, in the same house, in our everyday struggle for
a dignified life. They are men and women from whom we have received
much. The elderly person is not an alien. We are the elderly: sooner
or later but in any case inevitably, even if we do not think about
it”.
“We are all a little fragile, the
elderly”, he continued. “Some, however, are particularly weak,
many are alone, and affected by illness. Some depend on the
indispensable care and attention of others. Will we take a step back
for this? Will we abandon them to their fate? A society without
closeness, in which gratuitousness and selfless affection – even
among strangers – are disappearing, is a perverse society. The
Church, faithful to the Word of God, cannot tolerate these
degenerations. A Christian community in which closeness and
gratuitousness are no longer considered indispensable, would lose its
soul with this. Where there is no honour to the elderly, there is no
future for the young”.
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