`No respect for the senior, no future for the young,` says Pope Francis

“Where there is no honor for the elderly, there is no future for the young."

Pope Francis (photo) bitterly criticized the social tendency of ignoring old citizens on Wednesday. “We want to remove our increasing fear of weakness and vulnerability, but in doing so we increase in the elderly the anxiety and fear of being unsupported and abandoned,” he pointed out the social duplicity at an officiating mass. “The quality of a society can be judged by how the elderly are treated and included in the common life. It’s awful to see the elderly discarded — it’s an awful thing. It’s a sin!... And if we do not learn to treat the elderly well, we will be treated in the same way.”

Pope Francis solicited to be respectful of the potential of old citizens who have acquired the wisdom of life from the experience. The pope said that old age is the most graceful time in life as senior citizen have valuable experience, strength and wisdom of life, and those are inheritance to be passed down to the next generation. "The Church, faithful to the Word of God, cannot tolerate these degenerations,” Pope Francis said.

The former Pope Benedict XVI, 87, also attended the mass. Britain’s Daily Mail reported that elderly people holding their grandchildren’s hands at the mass gave big applause to the Pope.

snow@donga.com