The Pope Emeritus joined some 50,000 pilgrims, many of them grandparents and grandchildren, in St Peter’s Square on Sunday as Pope Francis paid tribute to grandparents. Pope Francis warmly embraced the 87 year-old and the crowds applauded as he told them that having Benedict close by is like having “the wise grandfather at home.” In his third public appearance since his resignation last year, the Pope Emeritus carried a cane and wore a long white cloak. Pope Francis said that group homes for elderly with no families were OK as long as they are “not prisons.” He said that the elderly are often "forgotten, hidden, neglected," calling that treatment tantamount to a kind of euthanasia. Reflecting on his own age, Francis described old age as a “time of grace.” He said: “Grandparents who have received the blessing of seeing the children of their children are entrusted with a great task: transmitting the experience of life, the history of a family, of a community, of a people, sharing, with simplicity, wisdom, and faith itself -- the most precious inheritance." He added: “A people that doesn't take care of its grandparents and treat them well is a people with no future."