Pope Francis started of his weekly general audience on the popemobile, blessing crowds and making his way along St. Peter's Square, surrounded by cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In his weekly catechesis he reflected on the need to respect and care for the elderly. Despite their physical limits, he said, they should not be forgotten or set aside. <\/p>\n
POPE FRANICS
\n'It's ugly to see the elderly being discarded. It's ugly and it's a sin.'<\/p>\n
Quoting the Bible, he described the elderly as a storehouse of wisdom and not a burden. The Pope even shared a personal anecdote of his time back in Argentina, when he visited an elderly home.<\/p>\n
POPE FRANCIS
\n'I asked a woman, 'Do your children visit you? She said, 'Yes, yes, they do.' When was the last time they came? I remember one woman in particular. She said, 'For Christmas.' We were in August! Eight months without a visit from her children. Eight months of being abandoned! This is a deadly sin. Understood?\u00a0 \t <\/p>\n
Using strong words, he said that a society that doesn't have room for its elders carries the virus of death. When families set aside the old, he added, it's often a reflection of one's own fears.\u00a0 \t <\/p>\n
POPE FRANCIS
\n'We are accustomed to setting people aside. It's a way to remove our growing fears of weakness and vulnerability. But doing so only increases the anguish the elderly feel, for not being cared after and for being abandoned.'\u00a0 \t <\/p>\n
Given that people are living longer and couples are having less children, caring for the elderly, he added, needs to be addressed by families and society.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
He then reminded the youth to respect their elders, adding that one day, they too, will grow old. \u00a0 \t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
March 4, 2015. ;The Pope lashed out against a throw away culture that sets aside the elderly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":52498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"http:\/\/youtu.be\/pNcfPhmTmWI","video_descarga":"http:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/","international_url":"http:\/\/romereports.com.edgesuite.net\/news\/budienza0403int.mov","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}