Pope issues message for World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly: ‘I will never forget you’
June 16, 2026
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CWN Editor's Note: Pope Leo XIV issued “I will never forget you” (Isaiah 49:15), a message for the upcoming 6th World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly.
“Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord promises that he will never forget any of us. He assures us that he has engraved our faces on the palms of his hands and that his love is greater than a mother’s love for her child,” Pope Leo began. “The prophet gives us a glimpse of an intimate and intense dialogue in which God addresses, in familiar terms, each person individually and the people as a whole. Even today, we can read these words as referring to each of us, and everyone can hear that ‘I will never forget you’ spoken directly to them.”
The World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly takes place each year on the fourth Sunday in July, on or close to the feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary and grandparents of Jesus. In the United States, the bishops transferred the celebration to the Sunday after Labor Day, to coincide with National Grandparents Day.
On June 15—the day on which the Pope’s message was released—the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life also published pastoral guidelines for the day.
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