Some parts of our human family, it appears, can be readily sacrificed for the sake of others considered worthy of a carefree existence. Ultimately, “persons are no longer seen as a paramount value to be cared for and respected, especially when they are poor and disabled, ‘not yet useful’ – like the unborn, or ‘no longer needed’ – like the elderly. We have grown indifferent to all kinds of wastefulness, starting with the waste of food, which is deplorable in the extreme”. 13Address to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See (11 January 2016): AAS 108 (2016), 120.
A decline in the birthrate, which leads to the aging of the population, together with the relegation of the elderly to a sad and lonely existence, is a subtle way of stating that it is all about us, that our individual concerns are the only thing that matters. In this way, “what is thrown away are not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves”. 14Address to the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See (13 January 2014): AAS 106 (2014), 83-84. We have seen what happened with the elderly in certain places in our world as a result of the coronavirus. They did not have to die that way. Yet something similar had long been occurring during heat waves and in other situations: older people found themselves cruelly abandoned. We fail to realize that, by isolating the elderly and leaving them in the care of others without the closeness and concern of family members, we disfigure and impoverish the family itself. We also end up depriving young people of a necessary connection to their roots and a wisdom that the young cannot achieve on their own.
This way of discarding others can take a variety of forms, such as an obsession with reducing labour costs with no concern for its grave consequences, since the unemployment that it directly generates leads to the expansion of poverty. 15Cf. Address to the “Centesimus Annus pro Pontifice” Foundation (25 May 2013): Insegnamenti I, 1 (2013), 238. In addition, a readiness to discard others finds expression in vicious attitudes that we thought long past, such as racism, which retreats underground only to keep reemerging. Instances of racism continue to shame us, for they show that our supposed social progress is not as real or definitive as we think.
Some economic rules have proved effective for growth, but not for integral human development. 16Cf. SAINT PAUL VI, Encyclical Letter Populorum Progressio (26 March 1967): AAS 59 (1967), 264. Wealth has increased, but together with inequality, with the result that “new forms of poverty are emerging”. 17BENEDICT XVI, Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate (29 June 2009), 22: AAS 101 (2009), 657. The claim that the modern world has reduced poverty is made by measuring poverty with criteria from the past that do not correspond to present-day realities. In other times, for example, lack of access to electric energy was not considered a sign of poverty, nor was it a source of hardship. Poverty must always be understood and gauged in the context of the actual opportunities available in each concrete historical period.