Commonweal on March 3, 2025, published a brief article
by Carmen Nanko-Fernández, professor of Hispanic theology and ministry and director of the Hispanic Theology and Ministry Program at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.
On my Lake County Ohio Weal blog, I have published an extensive version of the article which includes summaries of all the hidden links included in the original article. I decide to give it a more popular and less theological title consistent with the original article.
In the new deanery structure of the Diocese of Cleveland, each deanery is to develop a three- year deanery plan with up to three priorities. Those priorities should be things that are best done at the deanery level rather at the parish or diocesan level.
Old Age should be a very good candidate at least for our deanery which includes Lake and Geauga Counties. Most of the parishes are in suburban Lake County with only a few in rural Geauga. The situation of the elderly in Lake County is very different from Cleveland. Geauga is probably much like Lake County except for the rural distance problem.
This Commonweal article provides the perfect Commonweal introduction to the extensive teaching of Pope Francis which the Hispanic author summarized as his preferential option for the elderly.
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However, I am posting it here to open a very different discussion. In all his teaching Pope Francis clearly positions himself as one of the elderly, therefore his teaching applies to himself, and has much to tell us about how he views his present health situation.
1. He views himself as being elected as an elderly pope, i.e. precisely when he was preparing to retire as archbishop. He says he was elected to do something new. That is a constant refrain in his teaching about the elderly. When life slows you down, his advice is to do something new. He has certainly thrown himself into the papacy as something new.
What he does not say is that he was the primary alternative eight years before when Ratzinger was elected Pope. He has likely concluded that he is meant to govern the Church as an elderly pope and to be a witness in his own life of the preferential option for the elderly.
2. He views the preferential love for the elderly to be at least equal to his better-known preferential love for immigrants. Both are very related in North America and Europe because falling birth rates have provided a larger percentage of elderly in the population along for the need for immigrants to come into the younger workforce.
3. While Francis does not believe old age itself is a disease, he is very aware that the elderly are more prone to disabilities. However, he does not believe that these disabilities should be treated as any different from those occurring at other ages.
His mobility disability is a good example. Clearly in modern societies we try to rehabilitate persons when they are still workforce age. Ohio has extensive programs to do this. However, our societies do not always try to rehabilitate the elderly. In regard to his mobility, everything around Francis is now organized to enable him to retain his mobility just as if he were a younger person.
If Francis survives this episode of pneumonia, he will likely have some respiratory disability that will require oxygen assistance from time to time. The technology has advanced that this assistance is more user friendly. So, we should expect Francis to be surrounded with respiratory along with mobility aids. The media especially his foes may suggest that he should resign, however Francis does not regard disabilities as an impairment to governing as long as they do not impair his ability to work, especially to be thoughtful and discerning.
Some might say that spending weeks every year or so in the hospital recovering from respiratory ailments means the Pope will not be able to do his work. Popes are supposed to take a month off each year (in August) which B16 and JP2 did (he went skiing when he was younger). Francis has not left the Vatican but simply says he does more reading and listening to music. Francis is likely to reply that he simply takes his vacations in the hospital.
4. With aging comes lessening of our ability to be protagonists of our lives, but not a lessening of the ability to be witnesses of our lives. We become more dependent upon others and can act less independently of them. Francis admits that this is very difficult for him. Much of his papacy has been a battle to get the curia and bishops conferences around the world to go with his vision. He has had to use the media to go over their heads to get the people.
While some of his other efforts (environment, interfaith, immigration) may be diminished by his age, his witness to aging as a preferential option may be enhanced. Certainly, his present hospitalization seems to be playing out as way to do that. The media which had been saying that the Vatican must not be telling us the whole truth are now saying that maybe they are giving us too many details forcing us to live in close intimacy with struggling pope.
5. The next Pope. The media would like us all to move on to the next pope. Francis has an interesting view of the post resurrection episode when Jesus tells Peter that at the end of his life Peter will loss his freedom and be bound by others. Peter then asks of Jesus what will happen to the (younger) John. Francis takes this as a question of will John become the next Pope and says that Jesus tells Peter it is none of his business.
This may give us an important insight as to how Francis views the papacy. Namely that it is important for him to bear witness to the Gospel values that the Spirit has implanted with him, but it is up to God not him to call his successor. Whether his successor takes up synodality, immigration, environment, the elderly is up to the Holy Spirit In the meantime Frances needs to bear witness to the Gospel in the ways that he has been called
I'm unclear on what "preferential treatment" or "preferential option" means. I believe Jim has talked about this in regards to the poor.
ReplyDeleteRC churches in this diocese are moving away from providing "social services" to the needy or marginalized (like the elderly) and more toward pushing a return to Catholic spiritual practices to bolster "Catholic identity." There are a couple parishes within "minority" communities that are exceptions to that.
"Preferential option" had its origins in Latin American liberation theology. It was one of the things that came under question by its opponents.
ReplyDeleteThe ultimate interpretation is that God's preferential option for the poor, the many times in the Bible that God declares he on the side of the poor and not the rich, is a sign of God's universal love for all humanity rich and poor alike, i.e. that God does not just love some people, e.g. rich because they have been favored by riches.
In the church, especially in Latin American ecclesiology, it means that we show our love for all humanity by loving (favoring) the least among us, e.g. children, the poor, the disabled and now by extension to the elderly.
Thanks for your reaction. My intuition was that the average person in Lake County, even the average Catholic churchgoer would not understand its theological roots. That is why I gave the article a new title consistent with her opening remarks and story which make more sense to the average person.
Jean says: RC churches in this diocese are moving away from providing "social services" to the needy or marginalized (like the elderly) and more toward pushing a return to Catholic spiritual practices to bolster "Catholic identity."
ReplyDeleteRead what Francis has to say about the elderly. I don't think it is talking mainly about social services. I think he is talking about dignity and self-esteem. For many marginal people, e.g. the poor, the elderly, the mentally ill, social services are often a way to get them out of sight so that we don't have to deal with. Francis often remarks that parishes are communities, they are not non-profit philanthropic organizations. All too often the liberal vision for parishes is just that.
Dorothy Day was very aware of this and denied that she was a social worker. One day when a visitor came to meet her, he noticed she was eating lunch with an obviously poor person. He sat at a distance waiting for the opportunity to talk to her. Finally, she said. "Young man you seem to be waiting to talk to someone, which of us do you want to talk to?" A hint that if he really wanted to know with hospitality houses were about, he would be talking to the poor person, not her.
I would like to see us move in the direction of "both/and". People have physical needs. And needs for spiritual care, and dignity and respect.
DeleteI haven't studied Liberation Theology much, I didn't know that the preferential option expression came from that school of thought. About the only thing I heard said about Liberation Theology in the 70s and 80s was that it was borderline heresy and communist-adjacent. Of course it turns out that there is a lot more to it than that overly simplistic take.
Elderly people seem overrepresented in parishes around here, both in terms of numbers and influence. Then they get sick and stop attending. There is often no concerted give-an-elder-a-ride-to-church or home Communion outreach. A few larger parishes have TV church. Raber found that helpful after his heart attack, but the camera is on the altar, and he wanted to see his friends in the pews before Mass.
DeleteI started bringing my own seat cushion to Mass due to sciatica (flares up on a hard seat). I've thought several times about donating a few of these to keep in the lobby. Anybody who suggests "giving it up for Christ" has never had sciatica.
One place where elder spiritual care is lacking is funeral prep. It costs a LOT of money to have even a simple Catholic funeral where a body is casketed, transported to the Church for a brief visitation before the Mass, then taken to the cemetery. It would be great if priests or deacons could do a brief presentation about what's acceptable (in our case how you can do something acceptable for the least amount of money). It would also be good to review Last Rites, who can ask for them, and how to arrange for them at home or hospital; rules about being buried in a Catholic cemetery; verboten funerary practices (scattering ashes); discussion of expected donations to the Church for services and funeral lunch; how much input families have in planning details for the funeral; cost of memorial Masses; etc.
I think, however, that Jack is trying to get at something deeper about the Christian mindset and how you live out the Christian mission in old age viz what was written in C'weal about the pope.
Fwiw, I was always called to an active, practical expression of faith, and had boundless energy until 10 years ago. Making the switch to more contemplation and prayer feels, frankly, useless and self-indulgent. So helping elders make a transition to a different type of spirituality might be helpful.
I dunno if any of that is on topic.
Katherine , I didn’t really understand the roots of Liberation Theology until I had spent time in villages in the poorest area of the Dominican Republic in the 1990s.
DeleteBenedict and JP II considered it heresy and silenced several theologians. The best known were Leonardo Boff and Gustavo Gutierrez. The RCC focuses on “right belief,” - orthodoxy . If you don’t believe the “right” things then you are a heretic. Back in the bad old days people were executed as heretics because they didn’t believe the “right” things.
Jesus focused on orthopraxy - right actions - not on a catechism full of must believe teachings.
Apparently Francis’s two predecessors considered Liberation Theology to be heretical because it focused on right action - helping the “ least of these” by trying to leverage political action. As we know, this was not popular with the wealthy Catholics in Latin America. One reason Romero was murdered. Prayer isn’t always enough. Orthodoxy is meaningless by itself.
Jean, I was attracted to what we now call social justice, and the preferential option for the poor from childhood. My mother didn’t believe in this and we were raised without any family concern for the very poor. We had little, but others had far less. She was a diehard Republican and if she were alive now might even be MAGA even though she would hate Trumps immorality and vulgarity.
DeleteBut I always felt drawn to those devoted to helping others. My total transformation though from being a Jim Pauwels style centrist conservative came because of meditation and contemplation after I discovered Centering Prayer. I first learned about Richard Rohr in my CP group. He started as a traditional, white, midwestern Catholic who joined the Franciscans and started a charismatic community. As he evolved in his spiritual life he sometimes would observe that charismatic prayer could be a good place to start, but not to finish. Like Jack ( also from Ohio) he was strongly influenced by Merton and eventually spent a month every year living in Merton’s hermitage. Eventually he decided to found a new community, in New Mexico, that would teach both activism and contemplation.
After 7 years of almost daily CP meditation I was a very different christian. I have followed RR for 25 years. He was often accused of heresy by conservative Catholics who would sit in the pews taking notes so that they could report him to the bishop. Like today’s MAGA Catholics they seemed to believe that what he taught - the gospels - was heresy. Every bishop that received the coordinated mass complaints exonerated him - saying that RR doesn’t teach heresy but the gospel.
https://cac.org/about/who-we-are/
“Franciscan Richard Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in 1987 because he saw a deep need for the integration of both action and contemplation—the two are inseparable. As Father Richard likes to say, the most important word in our Center’s name is neither Action nor Contemplation, but the word and.
Contemplation is a way of listening with the heart while not relying entirely on the head. Contemplation is a prayerful letting go of our sense of control and choosing to cooperate with God and God’s work in the world. Prayer without action, as Father Richard says, can promote our tendency to self-preoccupation, and without contemplation, even well-intended actions can cause more harm than good.”
Jean, now that cremation is acceptable to the church, that is a much cheaper option. I don't want it personally, but lots of people have it, and the urn can be brought into church the same as a casket for a funeral. There are parishes who which have built columbariums where people can have a niche and a name plate for low cost. Some of them have even offered a free place if people have a family member's ashes stashed in a closet or garage and don't know what to do with them.
DeleteMy solution to make things easier for my kids is to have a life insurance policy earmarked for funeral expenses.
Anyone who is a baptized Catholic ( even if they haven't been to church in a long time) can have the last sacraments. They aren't going to grill you on the articles of the Creed. And imperfect contrition is fine. One of my friends whose husband was Protestant, and who had lapsed into a coma after a massive heart attack was anointed ( the husband, not the friend). This was in the Lincoln diocese, even. It's a whole lot easier to get forgiveness than permission.
I should add a clarification to my comment above, that my friend's husband often accompanied her to church and would have been fine with the anointing, which doesn't make you a Catholic. They were a like a lot of us, hadn't thought about what they would do if death was approaching suddenly. He hadn't even retired yet.
DeleteAbout 25 years ago I went to a funeral where the deceased was in a basic, unfinished wood box covered by whatever the cloth is called that is draped over the coffin for a funeral mass. When it was wheeled out to the hearse after the wind caught a corner and I could see that the box was about as basic as you can get. It was destined for cremation so I guess the family decided not to waste money on an expensive coffin.
DeleteJean, Sr.Joan Chittister OSB has been a Catholic activist for most of her life. Like Rohr, conservative Catholics call her a heretic. She has written many books, including one called The Gift of Years. She discusses aging ( she’s in her late 80s, infirmities etc and how we can age with purpose after a lifetime of being active. Perhaps you might find something worthwhile in her book. Like Jack and RR, her monastery is on Ohio. Is there something in the water there? Even Jack’s sung Office is a form of contemplative prayer.
DeleteI wasn't looking for personal guidance here, but sharing these kinds of tips among parish members is prob helpful.
DeleteIn my experience, info re the Last Rites would be best coming from a priest.
I would trust Katherine’s information before I would trust your pastor.
DeleteThe priest is the one deciding whether he'll do it or not, not Katherine.
DeleteI've told Raber to call in the Episcopalians to do the prayers for me as circumstances permit. He seems fine with that.
My understanding is that funerals are increasing coming under the control of the family rather than funeral directors or parishes. Yes, parishes have rules about what they will or will not do. But funeral directors increasing do with the family wants.
DeleteThe Orthodox have the interesting custom of praying the entire psalter from the time of the beginning of the wake until the funeral service. It is modeled on the practice of praying the entire psalter from Good Friday evening through Holy Saturday Morning. Today this practice is mainly done for clerics.
While I might be able to convince the local Orthodox community to do this for me, I doubt the local Catholic community would do it. Anyway, I would not be there, so why put people to all the trouble. Let them figure out what they need for themselves.
Since funerals are becoming celebrations of the lives of the person, I have been increasing thinking of doing a service or series of services of thanksgiving BEFORE I die, as a handing on my wisdom, which is what Francis is talking about.
So perhaps we could do the psalter over a period of days, weeks or months? That reminds me that I recently noticed that the entire chanted psalter in the Sarum Rite is available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfqlfKzf7YaAap_FN3xkuwZgRrKleFJN-
“I’m old now and I can say what I want." Maybe we should take that as our motto when it comes to saying good-bye in our last years. I think Francis wants the elderly to do that over the long period of their declining health.
For two of my aunts during their eighties into their nineties, I either saw one of them several times a year or phoned the other weekly. It was a way of saying goodbye, an accompaniment of them in their final years. It was modeled on the fact that I did that first for my mother, then my father for the ten years after mom had died.
I think you have your own forms of wisdom. Think of how you might get creative in sharing them. You are already doing that here and likely elsewhere.
“ The Orthodox have the interesting custom of praying the entire psalter from the time of the beginning of the wake until the funeral service. …..Today this practice is mainly done for clerics.”
DeleteI have been to a couple of Orthodox funerals. I am very grateful that this was not done at them! 😉
I really like your idea of accompanying people in their last years, Jack.
DeleteI told Raber and The Boy that whatever they want to do after I died is fine, including holding no service. Completely up to them.
"I can say what I want" has been my motto from about age 8. Which will surprise no one.
I suspect that the title of the Commonweal article "Pope Francis's Preferential Option for the Elderly" may have been the editors. Authors do not always get to title their own articles.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing in the article itself that advocates a preferential option. And there is nothing in any of the quotes that I give from Francis that calls it a preferential option. In fact the closest is a quote from Benedict!!!
Benedict XVI, visiting a home for the elderly, used clear and prophetic words, saying in this way: “The quality of a society, I mean of a civilization, is also judged by how it treats elderly people and by the place it gives them in community life”
It may simply have been the author's way of categorizing the article. They put it in the categories of RELIGION, POPE FRANCIS, DEATH AND DYING. Interesting that Commonweal does not have ELDERLY as a category.
DeleteJean says:
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea of accompanying people in their last years, Jack.
In old age when a spouse dies, there can be a period of a decade when the surviving spouse is alone. Usually that is the woman, but my dad lived alone for a decade after mom died in her early seventies.
Most surviving spouses want to live in their own homes and not have to adapt to living with another family even if that family is their kids.
The problem of getting a support group for them is twofold.
First the children are usually still working. That was true of me in regard to my father. I retired at age sixty, shortly after he died. After mom died, he came to see me regularly just as they had always done. Then as he aged, I went to see him regularly. I also had him call me each day around 10am. Those were the days of long-distance tolls. I did not answer the phone but knew he was well because he called me on time. In his little town there is not home postal delivery. He drove about two blocks to the post office each day. The post office was the social center of the town. So, everyone knew he was ok because he showed up for his mail. Neighbors also watched out for him. My uncle's son who lived about a mile away often stopped to check on him and did odd jobs like snow removal and lawn care for him. His sister and her husband live about ten miles away, so he often saw them. It really took a network of uncoordinated people to accompany him. He was fortunate. Note that it was not church centered; Dad was never a church goer.
My aunt back in PA had a large extended family when her husband died. The problem there was that they were all working and involved with their children. She was no longer confident in being able to drive so people had to come to her. By spending several weeks with her each year, I provided some of that daily company that she needed. Very simple things like eating meals together or taking her out for lunch or dinner. The rest of the time she watched her TV programs while I played music in my bedroom or read books on her large, enclosed porch which had a wonderful view.
My aunt in Florida did not have much family and so was alone after her husband died. They had a beautiful home with a huge pool surrounded by a screened enclosure. They had had a great group of friends, but they all disappeared when they came into their eighties, as people died or moved away to be with their kids. I called her every Sunday afternoon for our weekly chat. She was a very intelligent woman with a lot of interests.
The basic problem for old age is that your kids (20 plus years younger) are still in the workforce and often live far away, and your age mates are dying often or moving away to be with their kids. The answer is to build support systems with people who are about ten years to fifteen years younger, i.e. that people who retire in their sixties begin to care for people in their eighties.
I proposed this to our parish council during my term. It was attractive to a lot of the members, but the pastor did not want to put time an energy into it. His entire life is centered around keeping the parish school running and keeping the parish attractive to young families. He did not have Francis's vision of a parish built around relationships between the young and the elderly, those of grandparent age. The pastor retires this summer.
Lake County is composed of middle, mostly professional, class suburbs with a stable population. As people die, they are replaced by younger people moving in take jobs and raise their children in good schools, parochial and public.
My vision for the Lake County Deanery is composed of parish retirement communities that balance the school communities. People when they retire would begin to support those who are older and more disabled knowing that they will in turn be supported by younger people as they retire.
Jean - “ Most surviving spouses want to live in their own homes and not have to adapt to living with another family even if that family is their kids.” So true.
DeleteWe enjoyed living with our eldest son during the first several months of Covid.We stayed in their garage conversion studio apartment and could escape when needed. We were still active and healthy. We were there to care for the grandchildren during the lockdown.
Last year we lived with a different son, no longer active and healthy. It was necessary but I was VERY glad to be able to leave.
It sounds nice, but I can't see it working as assistance that elderly people could count on consistently. Retirees with money are traveling and going to Florida in the winter. The rest are providing free day care for grandkids or working retirement jobs and are pooped.
ReplyDeleteI was able to help my mom stay in her home with a combo of volunteer and paid help thru her county council on aging. Worked okay if she stayed off the booze and pills, but I had to stay in touch frequently and be alert to changes in her behavior. Cops and Protective Services got involved at some points.
Many elderly people have drug and alcohol problems because they're sick and depressed. They get furtive, fussy, and stubborn. Others have lifelong behavioral issues. Those things don't get better as age closes in. Helpers quit on Mom a lot because she was uncooperative. I can't imagine Church Ladies coping with anything like that.
The Vatican is now reporting that Pope Francis condition is listed as stable rather than guarded, which means he is out of danger of death from the condition which caused him to be admitted.
ReplyDeleteThey emphasize that he will need to be treated in the hospital for a while.
The Vatican curia is now in its annual Lenten retreat. Francis in the past has often joined them in leavening Rome for a retreat house. This year, however, they are staying at the Vatican. Francis is watching the retreat talks from his hospital quarters.
I suspect the press narrative will change to one of "can the Pope continue to govern in weakened condition?" so this post is very relevant.
The pope is chronically sick with a serious lung disease. I don't think asking if he can still carry out the work and is thinking clearly is unfair. Lack of O2 can cause confusion and fatigue. Saw it with Dad when he was in end-stage emphysema.
DeleteI do think that Western culture is often overly obsessed with youth and "optics." A church led by an old man on steroids pushed around in a wheelchair leads people to assume the Church itself is ailing and out of touch.
I think the real challenge for Francis being a model elderly Pope is not his chronic mobility problems nor his periodic lung infections but his tendency to be a workaholic, or in his terms to be a protagonist rather than a witness.
DeleteThe reality is that if he continues to be a workaholic he is going to be hospitalized a lot and die soon. I am not sure a workaholic papacy is a good idea for a pope at any age; I am not sure a globe-trotting papacy is a good idea. I don't think the pope needs to be the center of media attention that he currently is.
Is Pope Francis capable of being a grandfatherly pope? a figure of wisdom rather than a global protagonist?
Francis has tried to return the church’s focus to the gospels. He has also been fighting for Vatican II reforms. I suspect he has fought so hard to stay alive because he knows that his efforts might be quickly undone after he dies . He’s weak physically, but seems fine mentally. My father had emphysema . His mind was not impacted at all though his body was. His mind had never been clouded by addiction to drugs or alcohol .
DeleteI think that the Pope should continue to fight for the church as long as he is able . JPII had a different illness. Parkinson’s is often associated with Alzheimer’s . I think it’s very possible that he was also suffering from that and that his mind was confused.
Benedict shouldn’t have agreed to be Pope. He was an ivory tower academic who had no interest, in mingling with smelly sheep. It was a gift that he resigned but it’s too bad he didn’t leave Rome because his presence in Rome hindered the reforms that Francis hoped would change the church and lad it back to the gospels.
Pope Francis inspires me. I pray that he continues improve.
As a general comment: part of priestly spirituality, as I understand it, is that one lays down one's life for one's sheep. That can be understood to mean that the pastor gives his all - every ounce of energy and life - to the flock he is charged to lead. Or, to change the metaphor, there is St. Paul's remark, "I have been poured out like a libation" - he has poured himself completely, every last drop, into his mission; the cup is drained, there is no more to give.
DeleteI don't know whether this is a big part of Francis's spirituality, or Jesuit spirituality. But I see an echo of it in Francis's determination not to resign. Personally, I think the rational thing for him to do would be to resign. But perhaps one of the lessons learned from Benedict's post-abdication period of life is that it's awkward to have a former pope and a current pope living side by side. Francis may be acutely aware of that (just speculating here).
Sometimes you lay down your life for your sheep by turning them over to a more vigorous shepherd.
DeleteI feel my calling was to teach, and I have hated every moment of my retirement because of income loss, feeling useless, losing daily contact with young people, etc. But staying on in a diminished capacity was not fair to the students. Plus I wanted to quit while my student evals still said, "Instructor gives good explanations, makes time to help students, interesting and funny, but grades too hard."
I don't know if Pope Francis should retire now, but he should be thinking about it.
Pope John Paul II looked like a sad case of elder abuse at the end.
Jean, I am so with you. I am in a situation where I may be able to work into my 70s - or my employer could eliminate my position tomorrow. I still have a passion for what I do. If it really did end tomorrow, I don't know how I'd react, but I watched my dad go through something similar, in a similar stage of his life. After he was let go, he never worked again - and then the aging process sort of accelerated for him and he turned into an old guy fairly quickly.
DeleteAnd I haven't come to terms yet with the basic fact of retirement - that instead of making money, I'm spending it.
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DeleteI retired at age 60. I had planned it that. I enjoyed my job because I had great discretion in how to use my time as Director of Planning Research and Evaluation for the Mental Health Board.
DeleteMy bosses usually quickly figured out that letting Jack be Jack was the best thing to do. Not only would I begin to solve a lot of their present problems I would be looking far ahead into the future.
Since Boards in Ohio fund but do not directly supervise mental agencies, we do not get involved directly in their day-to-day problems. We simply chose each year how much we will fund them the following year from our mental health levy funds. Of course, the agencies also earn Medicaid and insurance money.
My research assistant built and maintained a computer system of all the agency client information. I spent a lot of time working with agencies at the program level to improve their services. When I presented data to our board it meant that I had already discussed it with agency staff, clinical directors, and often client and family members. Sometimes I interfaced with other organizations that also served the mentally ill. Being the servant of all these various groups was really very exciting and challenging. I was always doing something different.
However, like Robert Greenleaf who also got to reinvent his job at AT&T all the time, I decided I wanted to be free to do whatever I wanted on my own at age sixty. Although I loved my job I never regretted leaving when I did. I do get to go back each year for the annual board dinner. My job was so unique that no one would ever compare me with anyone that is working there now. Empowering consumers to be leaders was a major accomplishment. Each year the board gives a consumer of the year award. So, I get to see my work continuing without having to do anything.
I guess the great freedom I enjoyed at work prepared me for the freedom of retirement.
Jim, from what I’ve read, the best thing to do if you like what you do is to keep doing it. If you can’t, but have another passion, then do that? Jack planned an early retirement and knew exactly what he wanted to do in retirement. I retired earlier than I wanted to because of my hearing loss. Unfortunately that loss also closed the door on my retirement plans
DeleteJim says:
DeleteAnd I haven't come to terms yet with the basic fact of retirement - that instead of making money, I'm spending it.
Jim, you need to find something to do in retirement other than spending money.
Part of the blessing of freedom in my life has been freedom from concerns about money. Not that I am rich. I have never invested in the stock market on anything like that. The single life has given me the freedom to manage my own finances without concern for others. My parents also managed their money well, again without the stock market. We both simply did not waste our money but saved it for important things. So we never had to be concerned about it.
It is interesting that Francis actually approves all the releases of information about his condition. His physicians make a draft which he then approves before it goes to the press. Also, the visit of the Italian premier which occurred early in his hospitalization was arranged by the Pope himself bypassing his aides. So, he is still very much a Pope who is in control.
ReplyDeleteSome statistics to put his hospitalization in perspective:
ReplyDeleteOn Friday, Francis will mark four weeks of hospitalization, placing him on track to match the second-longest stay for a modern pope—28 days, set by St. John Paul II in 1994 following hip surgery.
John Paul II holds the record at 55 days for a hospital stay in 1981 after surgery and treatment for an infection.
JP2's hospitalizations were at young ages.
I'm not agitating for Pope Francis to retire. But the length of the hospital stay strikes me as less important than the nature of the ailment. Pope Francis has a worsening chronic lung condition and is nearly 90. That strikes me as different from hip surgery with complications.
DeleteVatican News View of the Year:
ReplyDeletePope Francis marks 12th anniversary of pontificate in hospital
\As Pope Francis recovers from bilateral pneumonia at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, we recall the many expressions of pastoral care for the universal Church he has carried out over the past year.
By Vatican News
In the twelfth year of his pontificate, Pope Francis marked several key events for the Catholic Church, during which he turned 88 years old.
He has spent the past month receiving treatment for bilateral pneumonia at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.
Before this health-induced pause, the Pope recited the Angelus or Regina Coeli with the faithful 45 times, held 32 General Audiences, presided over 30 Masses, and held nearly 230 meetings.
He opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica on December 24, 2024, to inaugurate the Jubilee of Hope.
Two days later, he opened the Holy Door at Rebibbia prison, symbolically extending the Jubilee into areas of life most in need of reconciliation.
Throughout October, Pope Francis led the final session of the Synod on Synodality, which closed the three-year process to engage all corners of the Church in discussions on listening and participation.
In September, the Pope undertook his longest-ever Apostolic Journey, which took him to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, and Singapore.
That same month, he visited Luxembourg and Belgium, and then in December he travelled to the French island of Corsica.
The Holy Father also made three pastoral visits to the Italian cities of Venice, Verona, and Trieste between May and July.
During the year, Pope Francis published his fourth encyclical, Dilexit nos, focusing on the role of Jesus Christ’s heart in modern society.
He also presided over his tenth Consistory, creating 21 new cardinals from countries such as Iran, Japan, Chile, the Philippines, and Algeria.
Throughout the year, the Pope sent letters and telegrams to Church leaders in conflict zones and disaster-stricken areas, never tiring of appealing for everyone to seek peace.
Then, on February 14, he was admitted to hospital after suffering for several days from a bout of bronchitis.
After the most critical part of his illness had passed, the Pope sent an audio message to the faithful praying for him in St. Peter’s Square on March 6.
“I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers for my health from the Square,” he said in Spanish. “I accompany you from here. May God bless you, and may the Virgin protect you. Thank you."