Pontifical Academy for Life signs elderly care declaration with Muslim council, AARP

 

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia speaks at a press conference for a Vatican summit on longevity on March 24, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 21, 2025 / 15:22 pm (CNA).

The Pontifical Academy for Life, the elderly advocacy group AARP, and the Muslim Council of Elders this month signed a declaration promising to support elderly populations and promote research on brain health.

The organizations launched the initiative in order to help safeguard the elderly from discrimination and abuse and to protect their human dignity, right to independence, and engagement in society.

The leaders met at a two-day global symposium held at the Vatican titled “The Memory: Addressing the Opportunities and Challenges of an Aging Global Population.”

Representatives from the Vatican and AARP talked with doctors, scientists, academics, nongovernmental organizations, and nonprofits from more than 20 countries about the future of the elderly population and how organizations can advocate for older generations.

“We promote this symposium in partnership with AARP to reflect with scientific and academic institutions on how to promote a model of longevity that does not limit itself to extending the years of life but to enriching them,” Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said at the summit.

The event concluded with Paglia, AARP CEO Myechia Minter-Jordan, and Muslim Council of Elders Secretary-General Mohamed Abdelsalam signing the official declaration pledging their commitment to the mission.

The “landmark initiative marks the first official activity of the Vatican under Pope Leo XIV,”  Abdelsalam wrote in a post to X.

“Caring for the elderly is a religious and moral responsibility, as they are the memory keepers of human societies,” he wrote. “They serve as a living record for transmitting wisdom and knowledge across generations.”

The event and declaration were spearheaded by the leaders to help plan for future demographic shifts.

“By 2050, 1 in 5 people worldwide will be over the age of 60,” AARP reported. “Globally, systems and supports are not in place to handle the unique needs of a rapidly aging population.”

“Aging is not a problem to solve,” Minter-Jordan said at the event. “It is an opportunity to rethink how we support our communities.”


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6 Comments

  1. I’m not worried about the Muslims but I’m definitely worried about AARP.
    They lobbied against a freedom of conscience bill for healthcare providers several years ago and supported euthanasia.

  2. All the care and supposed regard for the elderly is over-ridden by support for assisted suicide/euthanasia by groups such as AARP.

  3. About the symposium title, “The Memory: Addressing the Opportunities and Challenges of an Aging Global Population,” and as a larger perspective, we have “memory” as anamnesis:

    “The first so-called ontological level of the phenomenon of conscience consists in the fact that something like an ORIGINAL MEMORY [!] of the good and the true (they are identical) has been implanted in us, that there is an inner ontological tendency within man, who is created in the image and likeness of God, toward the divine…This anamnesis of the origin, which results from the god-like constitution of our being [!], is not a conceptually articulated knowing, a store of retrievable contents. It is …an inner sense, a capacity to recall, so that the one whom it addresses, if he is not turned in on himself, hears its echo from within. The possibility for and right to mission rest on this anamnesis of the Creator [!], which is identical to the ground of our existence [!]. The gospel…must be proclaimed to the pagans, because they themselves are yearning for it in the hidden recesses of their souls” (“Conscience and Truth,” 1991, 2000; then in “On Conscience: Two Essays by Joseph Ratzinger,” Ignatius/National Catholic Bioethics Center, 2007).

  4. Isn’t Paglia the one who just got removed from the other half of his job?
    We need someone in this half who has a clue what we’re up against on the life issues.

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