Given that
the population in Europe and Croatia is increasingly getting older, and the pastoral
work of people in the third age is a relatively new term, the article firstly
analyzes the question why people of this age group are partially put (left) aside
by pastoralists and pastoral workers in pastoral discourse in Croatia. The nature
and characteristics of the third age in life presented in the first part show
that the third age pastoral care includes the pastoral work with the most
mature middle-aged people struggling with many life difficulties and stresses:
separation from their children, the need for making personal and lifestyle
adjustments, especially after retirement, after children moving out or after
the loss of a life partner, as well as experiencing fast and progressive weakening
of biological, psychological and mental health dimensions, a drop in life
energy, strength, and general decline in vital and all other functions. Old age
as a gift and possibility is depicted through several biblical characters as an
evangelizing and pastoral possibility, opportunity and call to a God filled and
more meaningful life. The second part presents the third age in the world and
in the mentality of the society and the Church. By looking at the contemporary
life context, we can state that words like old age, dying and death have become
foreign in everyday discourse and that is just one of the many reasons why the
third age people are often left to the side, and forsaken by their own families,
society, friends and relatives, and partially forgotten also by the Church. In
the world of the dictatorship of relativism, materialism,
secularization, anarchism, atheism, subjectivism, individualism, and the selfie-culture,
it is extremely difficult and demanding to accomplish the pastoral of the third
age people. The Church, especially in Croatia, doesn't have a sufficiently designed,
thought out, planned out and programmed systematic pastoral care which would include
third age people. The new concept of pastoral discourse regarding the pastoral
of the third age should develop in two basic directions: the first direction should
consider to what extent can the third age be a subject of pastoral activity,
and the second direction, based on pastoral sociology and demographic trends, should
strive to recognize the third age as an object of pastoral activity. Besides
the object, the third age can also be the subject of pastoral activity at
different levels, areas and dimensions, especially at the parish level, the
deanery level in some ways, at the regional level and (arch)diocesan level, in
areas of apostolate, parish pastoral councils, charitable activities, liturgy,
families, religious associations and movements, and work with Christians that
have distanced themselves.
Treća životna dob kao subjekt pastoralnoga djelovanja – mogućnosti i perspektive
