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María José Redondo Andrés
University of Valencia
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Isn’t it perverse and inhuman to praise the strong and abuse the weak? It is regrettable that some governments, instead of providing help for families in which elderly people are cared for, support measures such as euthanasia. It is shameful that the lives of our senior citizens should be calculated in terms of “usefulness”, spreading the message that their life is a senseless and unbearable burden – a message that will get home to them quite easily.

At the very time when their physical energies and their level of activity are decreasing, these brothers and sisters of ours become all the more precious in the mysterious plan of Providence.

In addition to the obvious psychological need of the elderly themselves, the most natural place to spend one's old age continues to be the environment in which one feels most “at home”, among family members, acquaintances and friends, where one can still make oneself useful.

John Paul II, Letter to the Elderly, 1 October 1999, no. 13.
 
Commentary

The family is the ideal framework in which senior citizens can be integrated. The presence of elderly people generates dialogue between generations. Their human and spiritual experiences, their maturity and serenity, all enrich the family environment. We all know about the warm relationship that exists between grandparents and grandchildren. On the other hand, their illnesses and physical and mental deterioration – even their solitude – brings them closer to Christ, as they share in His suffering. In this context, I would like to mention His Holiness Pope John Paul II, in the last years of his life, as an example of trusting acceptance of God’s mercy.
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