A very good idea. I have a cousin and a couple of friends who would almost certainly join such a Catholic institution/order, if it were developed.

Many older people would not be able to care much for themselves, and it would be very important to have a practicing Catholic staff to encourage a strong religious life. That might be the most difficult issue to manage, although perhaps not with God’s Grace.

Maritain’s solution also sounds good… but I don’t know whether it could be employed on a massive scale. Most religious orders won’t want an enormous influx of older people requiring care, and Maritain would, of course, have been a somewhat special case. I guess what inspired these reflections was the realization that in our time the “problem” of older citizens is becoming enormous, and that we urgently need to learn to tap this growing resource. But also, it seems that God surely has a wise purpose in giving most people a time of natural “poverty” near the end of life (in the physical and mental senses, if not in the material sense.) We squander the gift if we push people in this time of life either to spoiled selfishness (as the Uzbeks do) or to neglected loneliness and despair.

We who believe in the immortal soul ought to see the elderly as especially in need of tender shepherding… because they are approaching their final judgment that much more quickly.

What you suggest reminds me of the description of a medieval alms-house I read in an old (1962) Catholic guide-book to the English town of Arundel: there were places like these in every town in Europe, I should think.

“[The 'Maison Dieu] was designed to provide for twenty men who were unable to earn their living through age or sickness. They had to be unmarried or widowers and to be able to say the pater, ave and credo in Latin. They were selected from the most deserving cases in the town. The master, who was always a priest, was chosen from amongst them or from the secular clergy outside. With the concurrence of the other inmates he selected new members, received their oaths and expelled those who merited it. An officer called a prior was chosen by the pensioners from their own ranks. His business was largely domestic and he atended to punctuality at meals and in chapel. There was also a steward… and four servants.
The pensioners rose at five in summer and six in winter. Prayers were said in the dormitory immediately afterwards and Mass in the chapel followed. Each inmate was to wrok according to his ability, the more robust had to help the infirm, who were to give themselve the more to prayer as they had more leisure for it. At noon there were prayers and dinner, followed by recreation. They all were to work until the evening meal… Prayers came next and after that all retired to bed…”

All these institutions were robbed of their endowments and buildings in the reformation, mostly by Edward VI. Does anyone know if serious attempts to reproduce this kind of institution were made in later centuries, or how long such places survived in Catholic countries?