In an excerpt published by the Vatican newspaper, Archbishop Paglia, 79, praised Pope Francis for establishing the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly and said that COVID-19 reminded us that all of us, and not simply the elderly, are fragile.
The prelate lamented an “anti-aging ideology” that “has led to a deep fracture between generations, destabilizing them. Bonds have weakened, they have no duration, no history, no destination. The effect is a sort of interminable adolescence that empties affections and bonds.”
Archbishop Paglia called upon the elderly to reject this ideology. Criticizing the “futile and disorderly war of the sexes, currently underway,” the prelate said he does not wish to “trigger a new form of class struggle” between the elderly and the young, but instead to “reconcile the ages of life: the challenge is the search for a new alliance between generations.”