Fifth sunday of Lent

Scripture Readings

Jeremiah 31:31-34 Hebrews 5:7-9 John 12:20-33

For many decades, the Brazilian Conference of Catholic Bishops has offered a theme to be studied and acted upon during Lent. All Christians are invited to participate. It is called the Fraternity Campaign. Some themes have been about the family or land reform. Others have been ecological. But most often the themes have been about the groups of people who are more or less marginalized in Brazilian society.

We have centered on the poor, on the Afro-Brazilians, on the Indians and on the role of women in the church and in society. This year, during Lent 2003, we have been reflecting on the role of the aged in our society.

Brazil has always been a very young country. The large rural population had need of sons and daughters to till the land. With the passage of time, our country has become urbanized and the great majority of families live in large urban centers or moderately large cities where there is more possibility of finding jobs.

This has changed our population. For the first time in our history, we have more middle aged and aged people than we have children. Also, the rural areas, before television, the aged were venerated because, in the evenings, they would gather the youngsters and transmit the history of the region and of the family. Today the young people prefer to see action movies on TV, especially if there is lots of violence. If the aged complain, they are even more marginalized.

In preparing for this year's Lenten campaign, I read a book of quotes by older people. Some describe with humor the situation of many senior citizens. For example: "The four stages of man are infancy, childhood, adolescence and obsolescence" Or: "Old age is when you know all the answers but nobody asks you the questions!"

Also, in large families there is always room for one more. In our small nuclear families, every space "belongs" to someone. Many elderly people are abandoned or put in the care of untrained people who have no patience with the limitations of age.

In a world that worships speed, instant communication and production, who can support the slow, unsteady steps of the aged, their hearing problems and their unproductive (according to our culture) lives?

The book I mentioned above quotes the actress Bette Davis as saying: "Old age is not for sissies!" The aged have difficulty with family members and also in commercial establishments, such as banks and post offices. Our postmodern world is organized by and directed at the young and the swift.

More than 30 years ago, Simone de Beauvoir wrote that the situation of the aged was a scandal in France. French society closed its eyes to all the abuses and dramas it didn't want to see: abandoned children, young delinquents, the physically or mentally deficient and the aged. The last case, she states, is the most difficult to understand. If we don't die young, all of us are destined to become old. Why don't we understand that the treatment of the aged today determines our own future?

De Beauvoir calls attention to the fact that the elderly, with some exceptions, usually don't "do" what society considers useful. They have to be defined by their existence, their "being" and not by their praxis.

For most young people, adolescents or adults, old age inspires a biological repugnance. It is a psychological form of serf-defense. If we are young and strong, we do not accept a future when we will be old and weak. Our rejection of our own future fate reflects on our way of treating the aged we come into contact with.

Most adults treat their aged parents with a form of camouflaged tyranny. Usually, they don't give direct orders; instead; they use shady maneuvers. They surround their aged relative with an accumulation of attentions that paralyze any personal development on the part of the old. They treat them with ironic benevolence, exchanging amused glances with other younger adults. They lie to the elderly because they see them as useless beings who no longer contribute to the progress our capitalistic world.

We have read articles in our newspapers explaining that in the United States, 44 percent of the middle aged are being tugged in two directions: They need to care for their children under 21 as well as their aged parents. Low-income minority groups suffer the most in this situation.

At the same time, a federal study in 2002 showed that 90 percent of the nursing homes in the United States are inadequately staffed. The vast majority of the 17,000 nursing homes have too few workers, and this puts the elderly residents at risk for bedsores, infections, dehydration, malnutrition and pneumonia, If this is true of the richest nation in the world, what can we say about nursing care for the aged in the Third World?

Also, experts say that millions of older Americans face greater risks of misdiagnosis, misuse of prescription drugs and other medical problems because only about 9,000 doctors--less than 2 percent of the 650,000 physicians in the United States--specialize in geriatric medicine. Under my health insurance plan, here in Sao Paulo, there is not one doctor specialized in geriatrics. There are 10 million senior citizens in Brazil who not only do not have enough to eat; they do not have the means to buy the medicines that would make their old age bearable.