I feel bad about having him warehoused even though it is an objectively excellent place. The women
(and the few guys) taking care of them really couldn’t be better. But as Josef
Pieper writes: “The observations of Rene
Spitz have become fairly well known. He studied children born in prison and
brought up in scarcely comfortable outward conditions by their imprisoned
mother. These he compared with other children raised without their mothers, but
well-equipped, hygienically impeccable American infants’ and children’s homes
by excellently trained nurses. The result of the comparison is scarcely
surprising: in regard to illness, mortality and susceptibility to neuroses, the
children raised in prison were far better off. Not that the nurses had
performed their tasks in a merely routine matter and with ‘cold objectivity.’
But it is simply not enough to be able to eat to satiation, not to freeze, to
have a roof overhead and everything else that is essential to life. The institutionalized
children had all such needs satisfied. They received plenty of ‘milk;’ what was
lacking was – the ‘honey.’”[1]
Pope Francis commented in his
conversations with Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin: “The origin of the word ‘nostalgia’ – from the Greek nostos,
homecoming, and algos, pain – has to do with a yearning to return, the Odyssey
speaks of this. What Homer does through the story of Ulysses is light the say
back to the bosom of the earth, the maternal bosom of the earth from which we
sprang. I believe that we have lost nostalgia in its anthropological sense. But
we have also lost it when it comes to teaching – for example, nostalgia for the
home. When we put our elders in nursing homes with a couple of mothballs in
their pockets as if they were an overcoat, in a certain sense our nostalgic
side has failed us, since being with our grandparents means coming face-to-fact
with our past.”[2]
More Recently:
Vatican City, 23
November 2013 (VIS) – Elderly persons have always been active in the life of
the Church, which must set an example to society of how they are always
important, indeed “indispensable” said Pope Francis, who this morning received
in audience the participants in the 28th International Conference of the
Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers (Health Care Pastoral). The meeting
took place from 21 to 23 November in the New Synod Hall and examined the theme
“The Church at the service of sick elderly people: care for people with
neurodegenerative pathologies”.
The elderly “carry
with them the memory and the wisdom of life, which they transmit to others, and
participate fully in the Church's mission. Let us remember that human life
always maintains its value in the eyes of God, far beyond any discriminatory
view”, emphasised Pope Francis. He went on to mention how the increase in life
expectancy throughout the twentieth century has also led a growing number of
people to be affected by neurodegenerative pathologies, which are frequently
accompanied by a deterioration in cognitive capacities. These pathologies have
an impact on social and health care both in terms of research and in assistance
in social and healthcare structures, as well as within the family, which is in
need of help and adequate services to care for the elderly.
The Holy Father
reiterated the importance of a form of healthcare which “alongside the
traditional biomedical model, is enriched by allowing space for dignity and
freedom, far from the reclusion and silence that too often surrounds those in
the healthcare environment” and, from this perspective, he spoke also of the
importance of the religious and spiritual aspect, insisting on the need “to put
into practice a particular pastoral approach to accompany the religious life of
elderly people with serious degenerative pathologies, with different forms and
content, so as not to interrupt the dialogue and relationship of their minds
and hearts with God”.
“Dear friends”, he concluded, addressing the elderly present, “you
are not only the recipients of the evangelical message, but also, by virtue of
your Baptism, its proclaimers in the fullest sense”.
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