During the years of their youth, people encounter both successes and difficulties. Pope Francis has pointed out the significant role that the elderly, armed with vast experience and knowledge, serve in providing guidance through tough times. Underlining this, the Pontifical Academy of Life has organized a gathering on April 27 to celebrate the valuable input of the elderly.
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia is the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life. He believes “that Pope Francis’ insistence on the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren goes far beyond this simple event. This affective complicity, as I call it, responds to a need for relationships that have unfortunately almost disappeared in our contemporary world, so much that loneliness has become an increasingly common condition of human life.”
The Pope likened the bond between grandparents and grandchildren to a tree and the birds that nest in its branches, noting that it is within this relationship that they both “grow together” and experience the warmth and tenderness of home. Current generations are experiencing an “epidemic” of loneliness.
“Loneliness,” Archbishop Paglia says, “leads not only to feeling alone but to feeling unique. And thus to view others at least as obstacles, if not as enemies.”
To counter this, Archbishop Paglia counsels that “Grandparents today can transmit that human and even religious wisdom to our children.”
Pope Francis has long emphasized the importance of intergenerational connections. In 2021, he established the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly, scheduled for the fourth Sunday of July each year, aligning it with the feast day on July 26 of Saints Joachim and Anne, the parents of Mary and grandparents of Jesus. In 2022, the Pope dedicated 19 of his general audience catechesis to the theme of aging, highlighting his ongoing commitment to issues facing the elderly.
Adapted by Jacob Stein
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