In 2017, around 16% of the population in America was over 65. That percentage is increasing. Slowing immigration numbers, infertility issues, abortion (thought those numbers are dropping, thank God), and people just not having any children are all factors in an aging American population.
I have found it interesting how the charge to regard older people - women, especially - as not really their age evolved over the last decade. From '40 is the new 30!' to commercials narrated by the late Dennis Hopper assuring us that we still had what it takes to surf and go rock climbing, the entire narrative has been one of trying to assure ourselves that we are okay. We are not getting old. We are still the same and still as vital and necessary as we have always been and by golly we will make sure you young whipper snappers know it.
My readers and friends know I lost my mother this past year. She was 98 years old. She had lost a step or two but she was still darn sharp, extremely funny and quite capable of forming an opinion or an idea with a clarity of mind and spirit not often seen in people today who are in their 40's (I base that on Facebook posts).
When the Covid-19 pandemic first began to seep into our vision, back in December of 2019, my mother said, "I would not be surprised this this is not a result of contaminated food. I would not be surprised if this was a virus developed by the Chinese government to get rid of as many of their old people as possible". The idea was horrifying but hardly far fetched. Despite having a ancient culture that reveres those who are the Elders of their family, the Chinese Government is hardly a respecter of life.
As the pandemic spread to the US the first thing my mother noticed was how dismissive people were of the first victims. The underlying tone of 'they are in homes' or 'they have other conditions' spoke volumes to her. What she heard, and it was so sad for her to hear it out of the mouths of so many Catholics, was, "look, those people were getting ready to die anyway so what is the big deal?"
I am not telling you that my mother was right in her assessment; rather, I am asking you all to think about what a person of a certain age begins to experience in society and ask yourself, "Am I treating all human at every stage of its development, with the reverence it deserves?"
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 288, offers the following in wisdom:
Thus the revelation of creation is inseparable from the revelation and forging of the covenant of the one God with his People. Creation is revealed as the first step towards this covenant, the first and universal witness to God's all-powerful love. And so, the truth of creation is also expressed with growing vigor in the message of the prophets, the prayer of the psalms and the liturgy, and in the wisdom sayings of the Chosen People.
This would seem to suggest that all stages of life are important and all must be loved, nurtured, respected and honored as part of creation.
What my mother was seeing was how quickly people like her (and, someday, dear reader YOU) are regarded as just not all that important.
What I think has happened to us over the years is that we, as a pro life group, rightly tried to bring an end to abortion and forgot to integrate our pro life message to include every human life, even the ones that belong to the human we don't like. And so now, when we are asked to confront the sin of racism, or economic inequality, or problems with health care and housing and education we are on the defensive and we get angry. We then state loudly that WE are fine because WE are anti-abortion.
Of course we are, we have to be! But please stop and remember what else has to matter before we blithely dismiss the needs or the focus of another.
What I have seen in Catholic Circles is an attempt to chop up the pro life message and divorce it from anything that is not anti-abortion. And I have seen this fail over an over and over again because we have old people dying alone and no one seems to care. We have women and men attending daily Mass in parking lots wearing masks, arriving alone and leaving alone, and no one is shouting a robust HELLO to them from a safe social distance.
What I did read on Facebook were people who proudly proclaimed they are TRADITIONAL Catholics state in very careful language that, since the spread of Covid-19 was only affecting a specific group that they and their families did not belong to, it was nothing to worry about and a deep-state plot to overthrow their favorite political candidate.
I miss my Mom.
I sure hope she was wrong about the Chinese Government's plan to rid their society of excess old people.
I am sorry she wondered about whether or not she mattered in America before God took her home.
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