VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Even though its focus was mainly scientific, a Vatican-sponsored conference on aging and longevity could not ignore the ongoing convalescence of 88-year-old Pope Francis.
The pope returned to the Vatican March 23 after more than five weeks in Rome’s Gemelli hospital, but his doctors have prescribed two months of a drastically reduced schedule to allow him to recuperate.
For Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life and co-sponsor of the “Vatican Longevity Summit,” questions about Pope Francis’ ability to fulfill his ministry far from the public eye is one of the key points of the conference. The “gigantic contradiction” in Western societies, he told reporters March 24, is that people see a higher average life span as a sign of progress while also either ignoring the elderly or considering them a burden unless they are clearly making something, doing something or saying something.
“Pope Francis has shown us that old age is fragile, and that fragility must not be denied,” the archbishop said.
“With a thousand people under his window, he thanked a person who brought flowers. The number of people there did not matter, what mattered was a gesture of care,” he said. “In other words, his sensitivity, his intelligence, his ability to analyze is still intact.”
