The Telegraph is reporting that during the wide-ranging lecture, the Cardinal expressed his "deep unease" with the loss of reverence for humanity in the West that was causing some of the most vulnerable people in society to be viewed as a "problem" or "threat."
He was particularly critical of political decisions that cut back on vital care services which he said amount to denying older people their fundamental right to life.
“Instead of regarding the elderly as a source of value in their own right, a resource for families and communities especially in an increasingly fragmented social and cultural world, we view them as a problem or a threat,” he said. “We have lost that deep reverence for humanity in all its different conditions.”
He continued: “When society only sees age as an expensive inconvenience, a threat to resources and lifestyles, it no longer sees a person but a problem. This permits a slow erosion of dignity; subtly and silently the process of dehumanisation has begun.”
One of the symptoms of the violence against the elderly is the neglect too many of them suffer in a society that no longer values them.
“You do not care for what you do not cherish," he said. "If we load the elderly, or indeed any group, with fears – the fear of dementia and Alzheimer’s, the fear of growing dependence and the loss of autonomy, the fear of exhausting resources – you sanction violence against them.
“This need not only be physical, it can take other forms: it can be cultural in the way in which we dismiss their views or blame them; it can be political in the ways in which we justify withdrawal of vital services or quietly and privately deny their right to life.”
He also warned that attempts to legalize assisted suicide would create "collateral damage" on society and expose vulnerable elderly people to "darker" motivations.
“Of course, there are compassionate relatives who give that assistance with great reluctance and out of genuine compassion,” he said.
"But there is a darker side to humanity that we ignore at our peril. Not all cases of assisted suicide represent the final act or acts of love or the culmination of a lifelong loving relationship."
The trouble with enabling laws "is that they have a tendency, once they are on the statute book, to encourage the acts that they enable,” he said.
“Laws are not precision guided missiles," he warned. "They have a habit of inflicting collateral damage well beyond the intended target area.”
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
