Silver poverty, or poverty among the elderly. This is the focus chosen by Caritas for its tenth annual report, which outlines its commitment through 2025 to address the needs of increasingly vulnerable people.
The first figure concerns the increase in the number of seniors seeking assistance from Caritas offices throughout Sardinia. In 2025, 1,558 people over 65 received assistance, a 76.8% increase compared to 2015, when 881 people requested assistance.
The data are at the heart of the presentation of the 21st report on poverty and social exclusion and the 10th annual report 2026, at the headquarters of the Province of Oristano.
"I was thinking the other day, looking around, that there are more elderly people around us than young people," says Antonello Mura, bishop of Nuoro and Lanusei and president of the Sardinian Episcopal Conference. "This requires a great deal of care, a great deal of attention: we need to move forward so that no one feels excluded from this social situation, which seems to have no need of people with common sense, history, or memory."
"As of January 1, 2026, 28.1% of residents were over sixty-five, and for every 100 children up to the age of 14, there were almost 300 elderly people," the report states. Leo XIV's words at the beginning of the volume, regarding the "painful feeling of being forgotten" shared by many elderly people, provide the key to understanding these pages.
As in previous editions, the Report compares two complementary perspectives. On the one hand, statistical sources measure the extent of the phenomena. On the other, data collected by the Listening Centers of the ten diocesan Caritas organizations in Sardinia shed light on their forms, causes, and pathways. "Neither perspective is sufficient on its own. Read together, they allow us to approach reality more comprehensively," the report explains.