During his recent trip to the UK, Pope Benedict visited a Catholic nursing home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor. The 83-year-old pope identified with the elderly residents. “I come among you not only as a father, but also as a brother who knows well the joys and the struggles that come with age,” he said. Writing on the “Thinking Faith” website run by the British Jesuits, Angela Kitching comments:
If we all acknowledged our age more publicly and the links we had with people of different generations, it could have a transformative effect on our understanding of the society we live in. Britain as an ageing society has two options in the coming years: We can continue to exclude older people from our self-image as a nation. Or we can, as Pope Benedict did today, acknowledge that many more of us today are brothers and sisters who know well ‘the joys and struggles that come with age’.
