As the universal Church celebrates World Grandparents and Elderly Day and prepares for World Youth Day in Lisbon, Pope Francis encouraged young and old to form an intergenerational covenant.
(Vatican News Network) During the Angelus prayer on Sunday, July 23, Pope Francis specifically mentioned that the universal Church celebrated the third World Day of Grandparents and Elderly on that day, as well as the upcoming World Youth Day. The World Youth Day will be held in Lisbon, Portugal from August 1st to 6th.
The pontiff appeared with a grandmother and her young grandson at the window of the library of the Vatican Apostolic Building and invited the crowd gathered in St Peter’s Square to applaud them. “Today,” said the Pope, “is also World Grandparents and Elderly Day, when many young people are preparing to leave for the World Youth Day. For this, I have a young man and a grandmother next to me: the grandson and the grandmother. Let us applaud them! May the adjacency of these two events invite people to promote intergenerational alliances, which are much needed, because the future is built together in the process of sharing experiences and caring for each other between young people and elders. Let us not forget them. Let us applaud all grandparents!”
In his homily at Mass marking the third World Day of Grandparents and Elderly that morning, the Pope called on politicians everywhere to implement policies that protect the rights and health of older people. If social groups forget their elders, “discarding them as unproductive waste,” he says, crowded cities risk becoming “centres of loneliness.”
The Pope encouraged: “May we not desperately pursue those myths that only seek efficiency and performance, but cannot slow down to accompany those who pursue us with hardships. Please, let us communicate with each other and grow together.”
Link URL:www.vaticannews.cn
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2023-07-24 07:22:32
