Our Inter-Generational Covenant

In an insightful, troubling lecture, (//www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9338997/Reith-Lecture-Were-mortgaging-the-future-of-the-younger-generation.html) Professor Niall Ferguson reflects on our expanding debt in light of Edmund Burke's understanding of society as a covenant between generations. Our extravagant entitlement programs will burden the coming generations with an unthinkable amount of debt. Shame on us, the Boomer Generation! Shame on us who came of age in affluence and indulgence! Shame on us, the Narcissistic Generation! Let us ask ourselves: what is the legacy we leave to our descendants? It will be slavery to debt. The left is delusional in its expansion of the welfare state: if we just tax the rich, everything will be just fine! The right places its faith in a an under-taxed and under-regulated market: let the capitalists play and the wealth will trickle down to everyone! As an alternative to this bi-polar insanity, I recommend a three-point Catholic legacy: immersion in prayer and liturgy, a simple and austere lifestyle, and deep identification with the poor. This is simply our traditional Lenten, penitential approach of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. State and market, as Pope Benedict instructs us, are to be regarded with limited appreciation and suspicious vigilance as we move, always imperfectly and incrementally, to infuse them with the intelligibility of Love.