[Question:]{.underline} How should a traditional Catholic plan for retirement?
[Answer:]{.underline} Two excesses are to be avoided on this question. There are those who cannot bring themselves to retire. They live to work, have become attached to their own endeavors, and do not appreciate the value of well-earned leisure in old age. More frequent is the attitude that equates retirement with sloth, as if retired persons no longer have any duties or responsibilities.
The truth is that retirement is a special time of life, when a person can escape some from the incessant demands of the rat race and concentrate on higher goals that would be impossible without the extra leisure of retirement. It gives a person the opportunity to think of his soul, to pray and meditate more regularly, to attend extra Masses and devotions and to prepare his souls for its last end. However, it is also a time when a person can devote more time and energy to the practice of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, whether they be directed towards one’s family members (children or grandchildren) or whether they be directed towards others. Thus retirement has a real purpose, in total opposition to the modern concept of retirement as a well-earned right to unlimited sloth, pleasure and self-indulgence for as long as one’s health holds out, as practiced by snowbirds, winter Floridans and Texans.
Decisions concerning planning for retirement will depend upon the understanding of this purpose. It is certainly true that it is prudent to provide a nest egg for medical and other expenses, and to arrange a good pension fund. It would be imprudent not to provide for old age in such a way. However, it would be just as wrong for this to become a fetish, a preoccupation.
On the one hand, retired persons should desire to locate themselves close to a traditional chapel so that they can have ready access to the Mass and sacraments, even during the week, and so that the priest can easily get to them if they are sick. On the other hand, they need to play an essential role in society, by the help that they give to their children and grandchildren, to the community at large and to other traditional Catholics in particular. In the present crisis, these two aspects of retirement can sometimes be in conflict, and it can be difficult to resolve this conflict, and to decide whether to relocate or not. In such cases no general rule can be given, since the decision of prudence will differ in each particular case, according to the circumstances. However, if a retired couple does plan to relocate, they should have a plan as to how they will help those in need, whether family, parishioners or others. To opt out of such duties of charity would be to opt out of the responsibility and care for the common good that ought to be particularly developed in older, retired persons.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.