Rome, Italy, Mar 4, 2015 / 05:16 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his general audience Pope Francis condemned modern society for silently disposing of the elderly, saying that a civilization which views them only as burdensome is ‘perverse’ and ill.

“It’s is a mortal sin to discard our elderly…The elderly are not aliens. We are them – in a short or in a long while we are inevitably them, even though we choose not to think about it,” the Pope told pilgrims present in St. Peter’s Square for his March 4 general audience address.