“Love for the poor — whatever the form their poverty may take — is the evangelical hallmark of a Church faithful to the heart of God,” the pope wrote in “Dilexi Te” (“I Have Loved You”), an apostolic exhortation “to all Christians on love for the poor.”

Pope Leo signed the document Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, and the Vatican released the text Oct. 9.

The document was begun by Pope Francis, Pope Leo said, but he added to it and wanted to issue it near the beginning of his papacy “since I share the desire of my beloved predecessor that all Christians come to appreciate the close connection between Christ’s love and his summons to care for the poor.”

The connection is not new or modern and was not a Pope Francis invention, he said. In fact, throughout the Hebrew Scriptures “God’s love is vividly demonstrated by his protection of the weak and the poor, to the extent that he can be said to have a particular fondness for them.”

“I am convinced that the preferential choice for the poor is a source of extraordinary renewal both for the Church and for society,” Pope Leo wrote, “if we can only set ourselves free of our self-centeredness and open our ears to their cry.”

As he has done from the beginning of his papacy in May, Pope Leo decried the increasing gap between the world’s wealthiest and poorest citizens and noted how women often are “doubly poor,” struggling to feed their children and doing so with few rights or possibilities.

Pope Leo also affirmed church teaching that there are “structures of sin” that keep the poor in poverty and lead those who have sufficient resources to ignore the poor or think they are better than them.

When the church speaks of God’s preferential option for the poor, he said, it does not exclude or discriminate against others, something “which would be impossible for God.”

But the phrase is “meant to emphasize God’s actions, which are moved by compassion toward the poverty and weakness of all humanity,” he wrote.

“Wanting to inaugurate a kingdom of justice, fraternity and solidarity,” Pope Leo said, “God has a special place in his heart for those who are discriminated against and oppressed, and he asks us, his Church, to make a decisive and radical choice in favor of the weakest.”

That choice, he said, must include pastoral and spiritual care as well as education, health care, jobs training and charity — all of which the church has provided for centuries.

The document includes a separate section on migrants with the pope writing, “The Church has always recognized in migrants a living presence of the Lord who, on the day of judgment, will say to those on his right: ‘I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.'”

The quotation is from the Gospel of Matthew 25:35, which is part of the “Judgment of the Nations” in which Jesus clearly states that his followers will be judged on how they care for the poor, the sick, the imprisoned and the foreigner.

“The Church, like a mother, accompanies those who are walking” in search of a better, safer life for themselves and their families, Pope Leo wrote.

“Where the world sees threats, she (the church) sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges,” he continued. “She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome.”

The church knows, he said, “that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community.”

In his exhortation, Pope Leo went through biblical references to the obligation to love and care for the poor and cited saints and religious orders throughout history that have dedicated themselves to living with the poor and assisting them.

A section of the document focuses on the “fathers of the church,” the early theologians, who, he said, “recognized in the poor a privileged way to reach God, a special way to meet him. Charity shown to those in need was not only seen as a moral virtue, but a concrete expression of faith in the incarnate Word,” Jesus.

Of course, for Pope Leo, an Augustinian, St. Augustine of Hippo was included in the document. The saint, “The Doctor of Grace, saw caring for the poor as concrete proof of the sincerity of faith,” the pope wrote. For Augustine, “anyone who says they love God and has no compassion for the needy is lying.”

And while the pope wrote that “the most important way to help the disadvantaged is to assist them in finding a good job,” he insisted that when that is not possible, giving alms to a person asking for money is still a compassionate thing to do.

“It is always better at least to do something rather than nothing,” Pope Leo wrote.

Still, the pope said, Christians cannot stand idly by while the global economic system penalizes the poor and makes some people exceedingly wealthy. “We must continue, then, to denounce the ‘dictatorship of an economy that kills,'” he said, quoting a phrase Pope Francis used.

“Either we regain our moral and spiritual dignity, or we fall into a cesspool,” he wrote.

“A Church that sets no limits to love, that knows no enemies to fight but only men and women to love,” Pope Leo said, “is the Church that the world needs today.”

Read the papal exhortation Dilexi Te: LINK

12 Quotes from Dilexi Te:

1. “Christian love breaks down every barrier, brings close those who were distant, unites strangers, and reconciles enemies … Through your work, your efforts to change unjust social structures or your simple, heartfelt gesture of closeness and support, the poor will come to realize that Jesus’ words are addressed personally to each of them: “I have loved you (Rev 3:9).”

2. “This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, he continues to speak to us.”

3. “On the wounded faces of the poor, we see the suffering of the innocent and, therefore, the suffering of Christ himself.”

4. “I am convinced that the preferential choice for the poor is a source of extraordinary renewal both for the Church and for society, if we can only set ourselves free of our self-centeredness and open our ears to their cry.”

5. “A few years ago, the photo of a lifeless child lying on a Mediterranean beach caused an uproar; unfortunately, apart from some momentary outcry, similar events are becoming increasingly irrelevant and seen as marginal news items.”

6. “Works of mercy are recommended as a sign of the authenticity of worship, which, while giving praise to God, has the task of opening us to the transformation that the Spirit can bring about in us, so that we may all become an image of Christ and his mercy towards the weakest. In this sense, our relationship with the Lord, expressed in worship, also aims to free us from the risk of living our relationships according to a logic of calculation and self-interest.”

7. “The Almighty will not be outdone in generosity to those who serve the people most in need: the greater the love for the poor, the greater the reward from God.”

8. “​​The Church, like a mother, accompanies those who are walking. Where the world sees threats, she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges. She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community.”

9. “There is no shortage of theories attempting to justify the present state of affairs or to explain that economic thinking requires us to wait for invisible market forces to resolve everything. Nevertheless, the dignity of every human person must be respected today, not tomorrow, and the extreme poverty of all those to whom this dignity is denied should constantly weigh upon our consciences.”

10. “Growing up in precarious circumstances, learning to survive in the most adverse conditions, trusting in God with the assurance that no one else takes them seriously, and helping one another in the darkest moments, the poor have learned many things that they keep hidden in their hearts. Those of us who have not had similar experiences of living this way certainly have much to gain from the source of wisdom that is the experience of the poor.”

11. “Our love and our deepest convictions need to be continually cultivated, and we do so through our concrete actions. Remaining in the realm of ideas and theories, while failing to give them expression through frequent and practical acts of charity, will eventually cause even our most cherished hopes and aspirations to weaken and fade away.”

12. “Let me state once again that the most important way to help the disadvantaged is to assist them in finding a good job, so that they can lead a more dignified life by developing their abilities and contributing their fair share. … On the other hand, where this is not possible, we cannot risk abandoning others to the fate of lacking the necessities for a dignified life. Consequently, almsgiving remains, for the time being, a necessary means of contact, encounter and empathy with those less fortunate.”

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© OSV News / Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. 2025 – from CNS Vatican bureau, used with permission.

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