Never again!” “

Victims of the heat or of loneliness? The death toll of the elderly caused throughout Europe by the long torrid summer that is now drawing to a close is a tragedy. No country has been spared – in Italy, for example, 4,175 more deaths were registered than in the previous year, an increase of 14%. But France was particularly badly struck: it is calculated that 11,435 over-60-year-olds died during the heat wave of heat-related causes, half of them over the age of 85. Of these victims, 66 were “forgotten”; no one came to claim their bodies, with the result that the city of Paris had to assume the task of providing them with a civil funeral. A humanitarian and medical emergency that revealed the condition of profound loneliness and abandonment in which so many elderly people live in the country. According to INSEE (national institute of statistics and economic studies), France’s over-60-year-olds, 12 million in 2000 (21% of the population), are set to rise to 21 million (33% of the population) in 2035. 11% of octogenarians living alone never leave their home and have no contacts with others. Some 475,000 people are living in retirement homes (two thirds of them women over the age of 75); 70,000 of these do not keep up relations with the outside world. Below we present some reflections by the archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger , and a “proposal” of Eric de Bodman , senior executive who has decided to professionally “reconvert” in order to dedicate himself to the elderly. Re-establishing the links between the generations. “Each parish community – wrote the archbishop of Paris in a statement – is constantly called in the name of the Gospel to renew its own commitment to the elderly, often abandoned to extreme loneliness”. Announcing the intention for a Mass to be celebrated in each parish in commemoration of the 66 “forgotten dead” and recalling the commitment assumed this summer “by the parishes of Paris, aimed at responding with generosity to each request received”, Cardinal Lustiger stressed the urgent need to “remedy the breakdown of links between the generations in our society”, “re-establish the bonds between the young and the old, and re-discover the responsibility they have for each other”. “The provisions of solidarity and aid can never substitute, especially when family bonds are lacking, our own personal mission of brotherhood and love for our neighbour, of whatever age”. What presence for the Church? “Society must undoubtedly assume responsibility for the more vulnerable members of our society, in other words the elderly, and protect them”, but this action “is complementary to the support that needs to be given to the family” because “the family is a humanly recognised value, an institution in which ‘spontaneous solidarity’ is manifested whenever one of its members suffers from unemployment, loneliness or illness”. Convinced of this is Eric de Bodman, married and the father of four children, a senior executive who is in the process of professional reconversion to place himself at the service of the elderly. After years of service with his wife Blandine in family pastoral care in the diocese of Versailles, he has just completed a course in “theological and pastoral formation of the family” at the Université catholique de l’Ouest and also acquired a university diploma in gerontology. Recalling the “irreplaceable, if often unrecognised, presence of so many Christian laypeople, and male and female religious at the side of vulnerable and lonely elderly people”, de Bodman invites us to reflect on the possibility that “a small ‘cell’ of the Church may effectively respond to the needs of those of advanced age to be listened to and cared for”. Since “the precious capital of the nursing and retirement homes run by the religious congregations is being progressively eroded – de Bodman asks – how can we render ‘permanent’ those homes that no longer have the means to resist but which are privileged places for sharing the ‘gospel of life’?”.