Pope Francis told a Vatican City audience on Wednesday that it a mortal sin to “discard our elderly” and that they should not be treated like “aliens.”
“The elderly are not aliens. We are them, in a short or in a long while; we are inevitably them, although we choose not to think about it,” the pope told 12,000 Catholics on St. Peter’s Square, Agence France Presse reported.
The Argentinian pontiff added during daily prayers that as long as the elderly are treated as “an illness to be kept at arm’s length,” that future generations would be treated the same way.
Francis, the head of 1.2 billion Catholics, became the first Latin American pope in 2013.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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