Old age: richness of fruit and blessings

In January 2020, Pope Francis convened the first congress of the Pastoral Care of the Elderly, under the name of "The Richness of many Years": it was an opportunity for him to emphasize the need for the Church to have a pastoral care that meets the specific needs of the elderly.

In Spain, on 24 May, the document inaugurating the pastoral care of the elderly was presented, with the following title in its header: "Old age: richness of fruits and blessings".

The pandemic has particularly and severely affected the elderly and has stressed the need to launch a pastoral care focused on meeting the specific needs of the elderly.

With this stage, which puts at our disposal the founding document of the pastoral care of the elderly, the implementation of this pastoral care can begin, but it is necessary that we all feel involved in its development. Many of us older people can and must actively participate; When our movement was born, the people who took the first steps asked themselves: what can I do for the church, at my age and with my limits? And the answer to that question was: to take care of the elders in the church and that has borne fruit in who we are now. At the moment we are asking ourselves the same question and it seems that the answer remains the same: to work with, by and for the elderly, and in Spain we thank God for having put in our hands an extraordinary tool such as the Pastoral Care of the Elderly.

Alvaro Medina

President of Vida Ascendente España