Old age is the fulfillment, not the decline, of life

   
    VATICAN CITY (VIS) – On the “International Day of Older Persons” – Oct. 1 – Archbishop Zygmunt Zimowski, president of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, released a message on “The Value of the Life of the Elderly.”
    Archbishop Zimowski  said the international celebration was “destined to assume ever greater relevance considering there are estimated to be over 600 million older people in the world, and that the progressive aging of the world population could, within a decade, bring this figure to over a billion elderly people.”
    Archbishop Zimowski  called on Christians and persons of good will to pursue a more just society by encouraging the gifts of the elderly population – “those who are at times considered ‘not useful’ or even as a ‘burden,’ but who may instead offer a contribution based on the experience and wisdom acquired throughout life.”
    The archbishop said highly developed countries face many issues of including the elderly as “co-protagonists.” That is especially true as life spans are extended through medical and scientific discoveries.
    “This longevity cannot, therefore, simply be a question of greater survival time, but should rather be accorded its due value in a respectful and appropriate manner, starting with the wishes and characteristics of the elderly and considering the context to which they belong,” Archbishop Zimowski said.
    Solidarity between the young and the elderly leads to the understanding that “the church is effectively the family of all generations, in which everyone must feel at home, which must not be guided by the logic of profit and of ‘having,’ but rather by that of gratuitousness and love.”
    The archbishop said even when life becomes “fragile” during old age, “it never loses its value nor its dignity; everyone is wanted and loved by God, everyone is important and necessary.
    “In this way there enters the value of a specific pastoral care, which includes first and foremost the fundamental element of communion between generations.
    “It regards the promotion of a culture of unity: unity between generations, which must not regard each other as detached or indeed opposed; a vision of life that allows new generations to grow, immersed daily in this culture of unity, to which each person brings an indispensable contribution.”
    Archbishop Zimowski said care given to the elderly  should not transform seniors into the “object of care.”
    “(The elderly person is)  rather a subject and potential agent of pastoral action,” he said. “Religious assistance to the elderly should, indeed, be a commitment made by the Christian community as a whole.”
    The Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers  has organized an international conference dedicated to serving elderly patients who may have diseases such as dementia or Alzheimer’s.
    “From a Christian perspective, indeed, old age is not the decline of life, but rather its fulfilment: the synthesis of what one has learned and lived, the synthesis of how much one has suffered, rejoiced and withstood,” he said.