"Think about ladies of a certain age who go to Mass," said Coppola, who was elected in 2020 as part of a conservative coalition. "With a sex shop in the vicinity, they might have felt under-protected. Who do you think they'd blame for that?

Coppola insisted, that he hadn't acted under any pressure from the local church, led by Archbishop Francesco Alfano of Sorrento - Castellammare di Stabia.

"I just used my brain," Coppola said. "We Sorrentines live our sexuality in reality, as protagonists. We don't need phalluses exposed in a window."

However, the Amalfi Coast is one of Italy's most famous and luxurious tourist destinations, so the implementation of new measures may be driven by a desire to maintain its appeal to high-end visitors. Read more

He is a wonderful character.

His character gives us a testimony of the special relationship that exists between the fidelity of old age and the honour of faith.

He's a proud one, eh?

I would like to speak precisely about the honour of faith, not only about faith's consistency, proclamation, and resistance.

The honour of faith periodically comes under pressure, even violent pressure, from the culture of the rulers, who seek to debase it by treating it as an archaeological find, an old superstition, an anachronistic fetish, and so on.

The biblical story— [2 Mc 18-28], but it is good to read it all—tells of the episode of the Jews being forced by a king's decree to eat meat sacrificed to idols.

When it's the turn of Eleazar, an elderly man highly respected by everyone, in his 90s; highly respected by everyone—an authority—the king's officials advised him to resort to a pretence, that is, to pretend to eat the meat without actually doing so.

Dishonouring the faith in old age, in order to gain a handful of days, cannot be compared with the legacy it must leave to the young.

Hypocrisy. Religious hypocrisy. There is so much!

There is so much religious hypocrisy, clerical hypocrisy, there is so much.

These people tell him, "Be a little bit of a hypocrite, no one will notice. In this way Eleazar would be saved, and—they said—in the name of friendship he would accept their gesture of compassion and affection. A hypocritical way out. After all, they insisted, it was a small gesture, pretending to eat but not eating, an insignificant gesture.

It is a little thing, but Eleazar's calm and firm response is based on an argument that strikes us.

The central point is this: Dishonoring the faith in old age, in order to gain a handful of days, cannot be compared with the legacy it must leave to the young, for entire generations to come.

But well-done Eleazar!

An old man who has lived in the coherence of his faith for a whole lifetime, and who now adapts himself to feigning repudiation of it, condemns the new generation to thinking that the whole faith has been a sham, an outer covering that can be abandoned, imagining that it can be preserved interiorly.

And it is not so, says Eleazar.

Such behaviour does not honour faith, not even before God.

And the effect of this external trivialization will be devastating for the inner life of young people.

But the consistency of this man who considers the young!

He considers his future legacy, he thinks of his people.

We will show, in all humility and firmness, precisely in our old age, that believing is not something "for the old."

No. It's a matter of life.

It is precisely old age—and this is beautiful for all you old people, isn't it!—that appears here as the decisive place, the irreplaceable place for this testimony.

An elderly person who, because of his vulnerability, accepts that the practice of the faith is irrelevant, would make young people believe that faith has no real relationship with life.

It would appear to them, from the outset, as a set of behaviours which, if necessary, can be faked or concealed, because none of them is particularly important for life.

The ancient heterodox "gnosis," which was a very powerful and very seductive trap for early Christianity, theorized precisely about this, this is an old thing: that faith is a spirituality, not a practice; a strength of the mind, not a form of life.

Faithfulness and the honour of faith, according to this heresy, have nothing to do with the behaviours of life, the institutions of the community, the symbols of the body. Nothing to do with it.

The seduction of this perspective is strong, because it interprets, in its own way, an indisputable truth: that faith can never be reduced to a set of dietary rules or social practices. Faith is something else.

The trouble is that the Gnostic radicalization of this truth nullifies the realism of the Christian faith, because the Christian faith is realistic.

The Christian faith is not just saying the Creed: It is thinking about the Creed and understanding the Creed and doing the Creed. Working with our hands.

Instead, this gnostic proposal pretends, but [imagines] that the important thing is that you have an interior spirituality, and then you can do whatever you please.

And this is not Christian.

It is the first heresy of the gnostics, which is very fashionable at the moment, in so many centres of spirituality and so on.

It makes void the witness of this people, which shows the concrete signs of God in the life of the community and resists the perversions of the mind through the gestures of the body.

The gnostic temptation, which is one of the—let us use the word—heresies, one of the religious deviations of this time...the gnostic temptation remains ever-present.

In many trends in our society and culture, the practice of faith suffers from a negative portrayal, sometimes in the form of cultural irony, sometimes with covert marginalization.

The practice of faith for these gnostics, who were already around at the time of Jesus, is regarded as a useless and even harmful external, as an antiquated residue, as a disguised superstition. In short, something for old men.

Young people are watching us, and our consistency can open up a beautiful path of life for them.

Hypocrisy, on the other hand, will do so much harm.

The pressure that this indiscriminate criticism exerts on the younger generations is strong.

Of course, we know that the practice of faith can become a soulless external practice.

This is the other danger, the opposite, isn't it? And it's true, isn't it? But in itself, it's not so.

Perhaps it is for us older people—and there are still some here—to give faith back its honour, to make it coherent, which is the witness of Eleazar: consistency to the very end.

The practice of faith is not the symbol of our weakness, no, but rather the sign of its strength.

We are no longer youngsters.

We were not kidding around when we set out on the Lord's path!

Faith deserves respect and honour to the very end: It has changed our lives, it has purified our minds, it has taught us the worship of God and the love of our neighbour.

It is a blessing for all!

But the faith as a whole, not just a part of it.

Like Eleazar, we will not barter our faith for a handful of quiet days.

We will show, in all humility and firmness, precisely in our old age, that believing is not something "for the old."

No.

It's a matter of life.

Believe in the Holy Spirit, who makes all things new, and He will gladly help us.

Dear elderly brothers and sisters—not to say old, we are in the same group—please look at the young people: they are watching us.

They are watching us.

Don't forget that.

I am reminded of that wonderful post-war film: "The Children Are Watching Us."

We can say the same thing with young people: Young people are watching us, and our consistency can open up a beautiful path of life for them.

Hypocrisy, on the other hand, will do so much harm.

Let us pray for one another.

May God bless all of us old people.

• Pope Francis

Police have confirmed a Lower Hutt woman was arrested and faces two charges of importing a class C drug as part of an "ongoing investigation".

It is understood a second elderly woman was also involved in the October 7 raid, part of what police are calling Operation Painter, and that one of the women spent the night in a police cell.

Harrison Grierson have proposed nine options. Many of the proposed options indicate room for expansion and the development of new one and two-bedroom units.

The 25-unit village was established in 1984 for people over 60 on low incomes.

But the Auckland Council proposes to demolish the Village.

They want to use the land to to extend Monte Cecilia Park in Hillsborough.

Legacy Auckland City Council agreed to acquire the land over a period of years from the Auckland Catholic Diocese in 2010.

Residents have right-to-occupy agreements. That means they can stay for the rest of their lives or until they choose to leave.

Those opposing the demolition say the proposal to extend the park is problematic.

They highlight the lack of social housing options for the elderly.

"We have a housing crisis in Auckland and if we don't provide this kind of social housing for our seniors many will be thrown out of our community," says Puketapapa Local Board member Michael Wood.

But the Auckland Council community and social policy general manager Kataraina Maki says the purchase of the land is being funded through development contributions for open space.

"This funding does not allow the land to be used for any purpose other than open space," she says.

"Any change to the proposed use of Liston Village would require the council to refund the development contributions."

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

"It was lovely," she said. "I was nervous before I got on, but once we got going it was great."

It started as a joke but before she knew it Cecilia was flying down the Parade in Island Bay, a Wellington Suburb, on the back of her neighbour's Harley Davidson motorbike.

Click here to see more photographs.

Sr Cecilia's neighbour, Tony Maresca, says he warmed to the "three beautiful nuns" straight away.

"They moved in next door to us a couple of years ago and we became good friends and good neighbours. They are really lovely people."

Tony says he joked with Cecilia when she first moved in, saying she should come for a ride on his Harley Davidson.

"I said to her, "when you get to 80 I'm going to take you on the motorbike", and she said "Yeah alright!"

When the day finally came, Tony says he thought she was going to back out, but she was all for it.

"The best part was when I brought her back everybody was clapping and cheering, and there was the most beautiful look on her face."

Source

• Cook Strait News
• Image: Supplied

She always thought she would live out her days as she had for decades, in a convent under the time-honored Roman Catholic tradition of younger nuns dutifully caring for their older sisters.

But with few young women choosing religious life, her church superiors were forced to look elsewhere for care.

Rooney now lives in Jewish Home Lifecare, a geriatric-care complex in the Bronx founded as a nursing home for elderly Jews. Read more

Chittister uniquely combines strong advocacy—especially on behalf of women in both church and society—with a contemplative spirituality rooted in the Benedictine tradition. One of her recent projects is "Monasteries of the Heart," a web-based movement that shares Benedictine spirituality with contemporary seekers. Meanwhile, the Joan Chittister Fund for Prisoners distributes free spirituality materials in 90 prisons.

"There is no such thing as having only one life to live," Chittister insists. "The fact is that every life is simply a series of lives, each one of them with its own task [and] . . . its own plethora of possibilities." And for our later period of life, she invites us to discover new ways in which we can live out our responsibility "to give the world back to God a bit better than it was because we were here."

Aging, Chittister says, is not enough in itself. "Aging well is the real goal of life."

What led you to write about what you call "growing older gracefully"?

I was actually in my early 40s at the most when I first decided that, someday before I died, I wanted to write a spirituality of aging. I was a social psychologist, and I watched the older sisters in the community and noticed there was something really different about them. Everybody took it for granted that it was because they were older or holier or quieter, or that they had been formed in another period. But that wasn't it.

I watched them and studied them with a lot of interest. It was always an unfinished work in the back of my head. Continue reading

Sources

• U.S.Catholic
• Image: What Lottie Loves

This will be at the Father Carlo Gnocchi Foundation's Our Lady of Providence Centre, a rehabilitation and care centre on the outskirts of Rome for people with disabilities and the elderly.

Last year, the newly elected Pope Francis broke with tradition and washed the feet of young offenders - including a Muslim woman - in Rome's Casal del Marmo centre.

Previously popes conducted the liturgy at St John Lateran or St Peter's Basilica.

Continue reading

‘Caritas will also be there to help Syrians recover and rebuild, when - we pray - peace is re-established.'

While the immediate threat of escalation of the Syrian crisis has eased, the intense civil war within Syria continues to kill, injure and drive people out.

About one third of the Syrian population has been forced from their homes, and more than two million have registered as refugees in neighbouring countries.

‘Unofficially the figure is much higher,' says Mrs Hickey. ‘Our partner Caritas Lebanon estimates that more than 1.2 million have fled to their country, where a population the same size as New Zealand is hosting them in a land area less than that of Northland.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand is helping Caritas Lebanon in a third phase of response to the crisis, to cover gaps and meet the needs of the most vulnerable people. While about half of all Syrian refugees are children, a recent report by the Caritas Lebanon Migrant Centre has highlighted the specific needs of the elderly.

Many suffer from hypertension, diabetes and heart disease, and cannot afford the medication they require. They tend to eat less food so that younger family members can have better meals, but making themselves more ill.

Caritas Lebanon President Fr Simon Faddoul says, ‘They are our grandfathers and grandmothers, our uncles and aunts, and we owe it to them in this time to care for their needs, as they have cared for ours as we were growing up.'

Mobility is a critical issue for older refugees, yet many of the older persons find moving around difficult, and it has dramatic effects on their overall well-being. Huda's experience below provides an insight.

More photographs

To donate to the Caritas Syria Regional Crisis Appeal:

• Donate online using a credit card at www.caritas.org.nz; or
• Phone 0800 22 10 22 (office hours) to donate by credit card; or
• Phone 0900 4 11 11 to automatically donate $20 from your phone account; or
• Post a cheque to Caritas, PO Box 12193, Thorndon, Wellington 6144, New Zealand

Source

• Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand
• Image: Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center

Viliamu Punivalu was a member of a Samoa Rugby Union (SFU) delegation who took gifts from Manu Samoa players to residents of Mapuifagalele Home for the Aged.

Opened in 1975, Mapuifagalele Home for the Aged is run by Little Sisters of the Poor at Vailele, a village located on the central north coast of Upolu Island - a drive of less than 10 minutes east of the capital, Apia.

Source

• Talamua.com
• Image: Facebook

He told the the New Zealand First Conference in Palmerston North on the weekend that migrants were taking advantage of the universal pension scheme.

Singling out "a young couple from China" who could bring in four elderly parents, he said migrants could arrive in New Zealand at 55, not work for a decade, and receive full super and healthcare at 65.

He estimated there were 22,000 elderly migrants from countries with no reciprocal pension agreement with New Zealand.

The Prime Minister, John Key responded to Peters on Monday. He said migrants paid more in tax than they consumed in superannuation. Key said there were 14,000 migrants, who came to New Zealand after the age of 56, receiving superannuation. If these 3444 are Chinese.

If all all 14,00 were single and living alone, which is the highest super payout available, they will get $698 in the hand a fortnight. At the most they'd be costing $254 million net a year.

Peters disputed the Prime Minsters figures, but was unwilling to explain how he had obtained his own statistics.

Peters' announcement has been described by some commentators and a "Double Bandwagon" and a "Perfect Marriage", combining in one policy the issues of migrants and of superannuation.

The day of Prayer for Refugees and Migrants takes place on the Sunday closest to World Refugee Day which is on 20 June.

A number of activities have been planned to mark World Refugees Day in New Zealand.

An alternative solution to the superannuation problem has been suggested in the Financial Services Council's major new report on the pension system. It proposes the equivalent of the biblical system of tithing, where 10% of income is set aside for the church.

Source

• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: NewsTalkZB
• New Zealand Herald
• TV3
• TVNZ

A bulletin from OCHA ( UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) puts the cost of the Fiji floods even higher at more than $FJD71 million ($US40 million) in key economic sectors, providing the following breakdown

• Roads 17,951,438
• Water 11,910,000
• Works 1,180,000
• FEA 4,000,000
• Telecom 152,000
• Agriculture 17,416,693
• Education 3,188,650
• Health 606,544
• Sugar 10,530,000
• Housing 4,359,660

TOTAL 71,294,986

The latest OCHA bulletin says even with the situation in affected parts of the Western and Central Division returning to normalcy for the majority of people, there remain several concerns.

• A rise in communicable diseases is to be expected particularly given the extent of flooding, including areas covered with silt and mud, and continued disruption in urban and rural water supply. There is a high risk of disease outbreak. It says communities with no or limited access to safe water supply are considered to be at risk.
• Given extensive agriculture damages, food security in the next 3 months is under pressure for many, as almost 13,000 farmers have sustained damages. This raises particular concern for the most vulnerable people, including children, pregnant and lactating mothers, the elderly, disabled, the poor and those that remain in evacuation centres or with host families.
• There is an additional concern that the flood events, evacuations and subsequent hardship have caused stress on affected families and individuals.

Source

• Fiji Live
• OCHA Office for the Pacific region
• Image: UNICEF

It is called The Anchorage, because it is intended to be a safe and friendly place for all ages.

The Heart of the Hutt charitable trust, backed by the city's Anglican, Baptist and Catholic churches, the Hope Centre and Victory Christian Centre, is paying the rent and the running costs of the venue.

Read More

An engineers' report has found that more than 67 per cent of the buildings are below the minimum earthquake standard required by law and could be dangerous in a moderate earthquake.

The residents, their families and staff have been told of the closure, and planning is under way to relocate the residents to other care facilities.

The Home of Compassion has a 54-bed facility with close to 90 per cent occupancy rate, with a staff of about 80.

Source

• The Wanganui Chronicle
• Image: The Sisters of Compassion

The issue has reopened the debate on euthanasia. A spokeswoman for the New Zealand Voluntary Euthanasia organisation says "Our stand is that we agree with both Prime Minister John Key and Labour leader Phil Goff, who have both publicly stated that we need debate on the subject. It can't be swept under the carpet any longer,"

The Nathaniel Centre - The New Zealand Catholic Bioethics Centre - is appalled at suggestions that legalising euthanasia could be a solution to the increasing number of suicides amongst elderly New Zealanders.

Director, John Kleinsman, says that people suffering from depression need extra care and support, not encouragement to die.

"The old and the sick can too easily be persuaded, often in subtle ways, that their lives are not worth living. If people are suffering depression, they need help with that - they need support, care and counselling not a license to kill themselves or be killed at the hands of others. If the elderly are increasingly subject to abuse in its various forms, including social isolation, then we need to look at positive and caring solutions," says Mr Kleinsman.

"We must resist any moves that propose the death of the elderly, frail and other vulnerable people as a solution to individual or societal problems. The elderly need increased protection and care. Legalising euthanasia would send the opposite message.

Source

• TVNZ
• Image: CBC News

Full text of John Kleinsman's statement

"Many of those people are living alone, and they have lost connection with their families…. they haven't made the networks that possibly they could make, and possibly should make." Age Concern chief executive Ann Martin says

Age Concern met with the Minister for Senior Citizens this week to brief him on the issues facing older New Zealanders, including this growing number of senior citizens suffering from chronic loneliness.

A new report in Ireland has found that loneliness is also the biggest problem faced by older people living alone in that country

The Irish report covers attitudes to growing old, the younger generation, family links, income support, crime, housing, religion and employment.

Read the Irish report

Source

• TV3
• Image: Exclaim.ca