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1.6. Our Responsibility to Future Generations
“Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be
building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and
the sufferings of the excluded.”””
“The notion of the common good also extends to future generations. The
global economic crises have made painfully obvious the detrimental effects
of disregarding our common destiny, which cannot exclude those who
come after us. We can no longer speak of sustainable development apart
from intergenerational solidarity. Once we start to think about the kind
of world we are leaving to future generations, we look at things differently,
we realize that the world is a gift which we have freely received and must
share with others. Since the world has been given to us, we can no longer
view reality in a purely utilitarian way, in which efficiency and productivity
are entirely geared to our individual benefit. Intergenerational solidarity
is not optional, but rather a basic question of justice, since the world we
have received also belongs to those who will follow us. The Portuguese
bishops have called upon us to acknowledge this obligation of justice: “The
environment is part of a logic of receptivity. It is on loan to each generation,
which must then hand it on to the next’.* An integral ecology is marked
by this broader vision.”
Pope Francis continues his train of thought the following:
“What kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us, to
children who are now growing up? This question not only concerns the
environment in isolation; the issue cannot be approached piecemeal.””*
As a follow-up to Laudato Si’ (2015), Laudate Deum (2023), an apostolic
exhortation, reinforces the call for ecological conversion and urgent action to
mitigate climate change, which disproportionately affects future generations
and vulnerable populations. It continues the trajectory of prioritizing sustainable
models and intergenerational responsibility. “If humanity today succeeds in
combining the new scientific capacities with a strong ethical dimension, it
will certainly be able to promote the environment as a home and a resource
for man and for all men, and will be able to eliminate the causes of pollution
and to guarantee adequate conditions of hygiene and health for small groups
as well as for vast human settlements. Technology that pollutes can also
cleanse, production that amasses can also distribute justly, on condition that
Francis: 2015. Laudato si’, 887-945.
*8 Portuguese Bishops’ Conference, Pastoral Letter Responsabilidade Solidéria pelo Bem Comum
(15 September 2003), 20.
% Francis: 2015. Laudato si’, 887-945, e.g. § 160.
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