«We cannot sleep peacefully while babies are dying of hunger and the elderly are without medical assistance».

 

Pope Francis posted this tweet on August 17th, and with it he once again turns the spotlight on the protection of the weakest, while radically criticizing “the throwaway culture:” poor children, unborn babies and the elderly as well as the disabled, people who have become invisible to the eyes of a society that takes into account only those who produce. We must protect the weak and the poor because they are «Christ’s suffering flesh».

 

Children and the Elderly: Pope Francis, with this tweet, speaks again about a pair that’s very dear to him. The importance that Pope Francis attributes to the bond between generations was the topic on which Alessandro Gisotti interviewed, for Vatican Radio, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family.
 

 

 

 

A. - I believe that the Pope, with a great pastoral intuition, continues relating closely children and the elderly in order to talk about the family and life in general, because the entire span of the life of society and of the Church flows between these two extremes. In this sense, we could say that eliminating childhood is not negotiable nor is eliminating the life of the elderly, whether by not giving birth to small or by getting rid of the elderly through euthanasia.

 

Q. - The Pope radically criticizes precisely this throwaway culture, where those who are not in some way productive—children and the elderly—are excluded…

 

A. - In this sense, in fact, some could characterize this statement superficially as do-goodery, but in reality the Pope touches one of the cornerstones of the contemporary lack of culture, i.e. the culture of indifference and rejection that is embittering the life of all, of everyone. Let us remember also his speech in Lampedusa. This is why one of the fundamental tasks of the Church and of Christians, at the beginning of this new millennium, is—if I may say so—to restore the icon of the family, which includes precisely children, youth, adults, the elderly, the healthy and the sick. In this sense, a life that excludes children and the elderly would be like that of a tree from which the roots, fruits and leaves are cut: there would only be a trunk.

 

Q. – There’s also another striking aspect. In a time when, even wearily, especially in the West, we talk about inter-generational conflict, the Pope emphasizes instead that there can be no future without a generational pact…

 

A. - That's right. This, in my view, is another important point. With this reminder, the Pope denounces the abysm that is being created between the generations. It’s as if every age were abandoned to itself, without the bond that we could call precisely intergenerational, which is the history, which is the culture, which is the life of a people. In fact we risk blotting out society: every man for himself. But a culture that emphasizes the ego and condemns the “us” is terrible, because it creates not only indifference but also cruelty. That's why the bond between the generations is the condition for development, for encounter, for a life that is more peaceful and serene. This tweet is actually an open window on society, which asks us to look carefully at the entire span of the life, which we are all called to live with serenity, in peace and also with effort.