Elderly people, including former Pope Benedict XVI, attended a gathering of the wise and wrinkled at the Vatican on Sunday, where Pope Francis denounced the neglect and abandonment of the old as “hidden euthanasia”.
During the festive event in St. Peter’s Square, Pope Francis addressed some 40,000 elderly people — grandfathers, grandmothers, widows and widowers.
The Pope sought to underscore the importance of the old in society. According to the World Health Organization, there are 600 million people over 60 in the world today and the figure is expected to double over the next 11 years. —
