After launching the campaign “Every senior is your grandparent – #SendYourHug,” which has had an incredible resonance throughout the world, the e-book “The Richness of Many Years of Life,” a collection of the proceedings from the first international conference on the pastoral care of the elderly which was organized by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life in January 2020, is now available for free on our website: www.laityfamilylife.va
The goal of the conference was to promote a renewed concern for the pastoral care of the elderly in every ecclesial community. Yet during the conference itself, nobody imagined that the talks and reflections would have proven to be so timely and essential just a few short weeks later when the “lockdowns” in many countries began. The elderly today are the first and most numerous victims of the pandemic, of loneliness, and of isolation. Yet at the same time, the elderly are also those without whom the newer generations would have no roots or identity. Because of this, the Church has a cultural and educational imperative to work towards correcting the demeaning representation of old age which predominates in many societies today, in ways that involve all generations in the process of renewal.
In fact, with this e-book, the Dicastery intends to make this toolkit available to everyone, as an instrument for the development of a true “pastoral ministry that reaches out,” one which is able to involve the elderly as active participants in this ecclesial responsibility. As the Church, we are called to form networks of collaboration and solidarity between dioceses, parishes, lay ecclesial communities, associations, and families which put concern for the elderly at the center of our commitment. The presentations, and above all the conclusions, presented in these texts contain valuable information that we hope will aid in the concrete implementation of this mission.