Resist cynicism in old age, Pope recommends (Vatican News)

At his weekly public audience on May 25, Pope Francis spoke about the Book of Wisdom, continuing his series of talks on old age with a meditation on the temptation toward cynicism.

As elderly people wonder whether their lives were well spent, the Pope remarked, “old age makes the appointment with disenchantment almost inevitable.” But he said that “the resistance of old age to the demoralizing effects of this disenchantment is decisive.”

The disenchantment, the Pope continued, stems from a “fatal temptation of an omnipotence of knowledge” and “the mind devoid of affection for justice.” The balanced wisdom of old age, he said, should counteract the arrogance of those who claim knowledge—especially in an “age of fake news, collective superstitions, and pseudo-scientific truths.”