WCC news: Webinar asks what churches owe older people in an ageing world

Governments signed the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030), a ten-year promise to act on growing old. On 16 September, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission of the Churches on Health and Healing asked where churches belong inside it, opening an online webinar that Dr Gisela Schneider said set European and African experience beside that of India and Hong Kong. Photo: Paul Jeffrey/Life on Earth Pictures 18 September 2026 Rev. Dr Fr Stavros Kofinas, moderator of the commission, said the churches’ first task is to make the change visible. “Our mission as churches is to bring these developments to the forefront so that people can become aware of them,” he said. Old age, he argued, is shaped by five pressures: digital technology, anxiety, anger, apathy, and an adolescence that stretches into adult life. Prof. Arvind Kasturi, professor of community health at St John’s Medical College, Bengaluru, set out five obstacles that stand between an older person and the care they need: access, awareness, affordability, the absence of trained health workers, and accountability. In India, the UN Population Fund counted about 149 million people aged 60 and over in 2022, a share it expects to pass 20 percent by 2050. “For an older person, it’s not enough to have an accessible health center. It’s also a question of who’s taking me there . . .” he said. Josephine Lee, chief executive officer of St James’ Settlement, the social service agency of the Anglican church in Hong Kong, described services from fitness coaching by younger retirees to end-of-life care at home. One in four people in Hong Kong is now aged 65 or over. She asked churches to stop sorting people by age. “Why can’t we have a Sunday school for the elderly and the young together . . .” she said. Schneider, who co-chairs the Commission’s Working Group on Access and Health Systems, said churches should argue with governments over who pays. “It makes us aware that health financing cannot start at the end of life,” she said. Risk sharing, she added, “has to go across generations, and it cannot be left to private insurances.” Webinar will explore “Care of the Elderly: Challenges and Opportunities in an Ageing World”,  WCC Health and Healing programme #WCC Webinar: “Care of the Elderly: Challenges and Opportunities in an Ageing World” See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa.  Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland