Are We Connected Only to Ourselves?

In his encyclical Laudato Si, Pope Francis identifies a set of personality traits that have contributed to the crisis facing our common home and that prevent meaningful action in responding to it. These include a fanatical anthropocentrism, which views humankind as the “owner" of God’s creation to do with as we see fit; a focus on individualism, which sees individuals as autonomous and self-identifying; a wanton consumerism, which views the acquisition of material possessions as the goal of human existence and sees wastefulness as a right; and a transactional view of reality, in which all things, including all forms of life, are evaluated from the viewpoint of their utility to an individual (an emphasis on the priority of being useful over the priority of being, to paraphrase the German bishops). Unfortunately, these values are so entrenched in our society that, to one degree or another, we all share them.

To help us break away from this culture of individualism, anthropocentrism, and consumerism, Pope Francis stresses intergenerational solidarity. By removing the focus from ourselves and placing the focus on the generations before and after us, it allows us to see ourselves not as isolated individuals, not as self-identifying and self-defining beings, but rather as a part of something that transcends ourselves.

In part, intergenerational solidarity allows us to look back at those who have come before us and to recognize the influence that our families have had in our lives. In many cases, we come from families that have worshipped and served God for a very long time, often over many centuries. That family tradition has defined who we as individuals are; we do not stand apart from or outside of that tradition. Similarly, we are members of a faith that was founded by Jesus and disseminated by his apostles. His disciples, as well as the early Patristic Fathers, shaped our faith and, in the process, also shaped who we are. Here again, we do not stand apart from or outside of that tradition; it forms an intimate part of whom we as individuals are. We are, in short, connected to those who have come before us; we stand in an intimate relationship to them.

Intergenerational solidarity also leads us to look forward, to those who will come after us. Because they will reflect who we as individuals are just as we reflect who our ancestors were, we want to ensure that the values and the traditions that we pass on reflect the best version of ourselves. Entitlement, egocentrism, consumerism, selfishness, or self-aggrandizement are all traits that we would rather not pass on to our progeny and traits that we’d rather not be known for. We want to ensure that we leave a positive legacy rather than a negative one.

But most importantly, intergenerational solidarity forces us to ask ourselves about the world that we are leaving future generations. Is it a world of possibilities, a world filled with life, a world that exudes the glory of God and His creation? Or is a world in which much of the life that God has created has perished and all remaining life is threatened? Is it a world filled with hope, or a world filled with despair? An honest assessment should point out the disparity between the world we’d like to leave our offspring and the world that we are in fact leaving our offspring. And that in turn should lead us both to examine ourselves, who we are, and who we want to be, as well as to take action to ensure that the world we leave behind is one that will continue to sustain and nurture the generations that follow us.