In The Pope Video of December, Francis asks us to pray that the elderly of every culture will be respected and taken into consideration.
(Vatican City, December 4th, 2017) — In the last The Pope Video of 2017, Pope Francis urges respect and care for grandparents around the world, underlining the role they play in society as beacons of wisdom and experience. He warns that a society that forgets about its elderly members no longer has a future, because it has lost its memory.
“Let us be concerned for the elderly, so that sustained by families and Christian communities, they may apply their wisdom and experience to spreading the faith and forming the new generations,” the Holy Father invites. “Grandmothers and grandfathers are our strength and our wisdom.”
The percentage of the population that is elderly is increasing at the fastest rate ever. In 2016, 8.48% of the population of the world was over age 65. Countries with the highest percentages of elderly people include Japan (27%), Italy (23%), Portugal and Finland (21%), and Bulgaria, Greece, Latvia, and Sweden (20%).
“When a society loses its memory, it is lost. It is torn from its roots,” the pope warns. “Grandparents are entrusted with a great responsibility: to transmit their life experience, their family history, the history of a community, of a people.”
Jesuit Father Frédéric Fornos, international director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network and its youth branch, the Eucharistic Youth Movement, noted how Pope Francis highlighted the importance of respect for the elderly in a homily at Santa Marta in November 2013. “The elderly give us history, they give us doctrine, they give us faith and they give us an inheritance. They are the ones that, like a good wine, have this strength within themselves to give us a noble inheritance,” the pope said on that occasion. “These words are an invitation,” Father Fornos reflected, “in this month of December, to approach our grandparents, the elderly, especially those around us, and receive from them our history, our roots, the wisdom of life.”
The intentions are entrusted each month to the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network and The Pope Video is produced by La Machi Communication for Good Causes with the support of the Society of Jesus, IndigoMusic, GettyImagesLatam, Doppler Email Marketing and the collaboration of the Vatican Television Center. It also has Aleteia as a media partner. Since its launch in January of 2016, it has had more than 19 million views on its networks.
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About The Pope Video
The Pope Video is a global initiative developed by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (Apostleship of Prayer) to disseminate the monthly intentions of the Holy Father concerning the challenges facing humanity. The videos seek to unite people in praying with Pope Francis for those challenges. The Project has the support of the Vatican Television Center (CTV), sole owner of the rights. For more information: https://www.thepopevideo.org.
About the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network (Apostleship of Prayer)
For over a century, the Apostleship of Prayer has been publishing to the world the prayer intentions entrusted to them by popes. Now, in its process of recreation, the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network emphasizes its role of communicating the prayer intentions and leveraging new media and tools. Its mission is to unite people in prayer and service in response to the challenges facing humanity which the Holy Father expresses in his monthly intentions. Those who participate in this network are encouraged to become apostles in daily life through a spiritual path called “Way of the Heart,” transforming those who take that path in the service of the mission of Jesus Christ. Founded in 1844 and present in over 98 countries, the Apostleship of Prayer unites more than 35 million people in its network, including its youth branch, the Eucharistic Youth Movement. For more information: http://www.popesprayer.net/.
About La Machi
The Pope Video is an idea of La Machi, a creative boutique specializing in communication to advance good causes founded in 2012, with offices in Barcelona, Buenos Aires, and Rome. Its mission is to help companies, NGOs, and religious institutions communicate their philanthropic purposes. It specializes in strategic communication, creative advertising, digital development, and fundraising. La Machi has been recognized as a “Friend of Project Red” (RIIAL) and won the 2015 & the 2016 Mercury Prize for Best International SME of Marketing, awarded by the Argentinian Association of Marketing. For more information: http://www.lamachi.com/en.
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