“On Love for the Poor”

by Thomas Massaro, SJ

Any supporter of A Faith That Does Justice will naturally be drawn to the content of the latest papal document. Even if you are not much of a Vatican watcher, you will surely appreciate how Pope Leo places concern for the poor at the very center of the Catholic Church’s agenda, renewing our concerns regarding the most vulnerable in the world today. Here are five essentials on this topic.

1. Context
From the early centuries of the Catholic Church, popes have published documents to instruct the faithful on the authentic interpretation of doctrines related to Christian faith. While there are several categories of such documents, with varying levels of importance and doctrinal authority, the two major varieties to be cited here are encyclical letters (originally meant to be circulated primarily to bishops) and apostolic exhortations (papal documents intended to motivate all the faithful to live a worthy Christian life).

Those interested in social justice topics may know that it took many centuries (and the rise of the Industrial Age) for a pope to promulgate a teaching document treating economic issues such as the rights of workers to unionize and to earn a living wage. It was in 1891 that Pope Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum. That Latin title means literally “Of New Things” and refers to the Industrial Revolution and its challenge to just working conditions. Since then, popes have frequently weighed in with encyclicals and apostolic exhortations on social justice and economic issues, calling for both charitable almsgiving and structural reform to prevent dire poverty and to alleviate its effects.

2. Title
Ever since the May 8, 2025 election of Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Prevost as pope, Vatican observers have been eagerly awaiting the release of his first major teaching document. Newly elected popes typically employ their first major document to lay out a programmatic agenda of the key priorities of their papacy. It took Pope Francis nine months (March to November of 2013) to write and publish his first such document (the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, or “The Joy of the Gospel”) which highlighted the late pope’s intention to focus on the theme of effective evangelization. Looking back over the dozen years of the papacy of Francis, it is clear that the Argentinian (and first Jesuit) pope maintained a sharp focus on this central theme of spreading the gospel, broadly construed.

So all eyes were on Pope Leo XIV when he spent much of last summer sequestered in the papal villa Castel Gandolfo (not far from Rome) working on his own inaugural teaching document. As it turned out, the new pope produced a document that is only a fraction of the length of his predecessor’s (21,000 as opposed to 51,000 words) and required less than six months to complete. When it was released in a ceremony at the Press Office of the Holy See on October 9 (although Pope Leo actually signed it five days earlier), the world learned that the long-awaited document bore the Latin title Dilexi Te, which translates into English as “I Have Loved You.”

The title is very significant for several reasons. First, it references a key verse in the final book of the New Testament, namely Revelation 3:9. Second, it carries rich resonances with the theological writings of Saint Augustine, the fifth-century saint and scholar who inspired the religious order (the Augustinians) that the young future Pope Leo chose to join after graduating from Villanova University (long before it had won even one of its three NCAA men’s basketball championships). We can expect to see the legacy and influence of Saint Augustine’s emphasis on love-inspired action and the proper ordering of our use of all created things throughout Leo’s papacy.

Third, even casual papal observers had to do a double-take upon seeing the title page of the new document. Didn’t we recently witness a papal writing with a similar name? The answer is yes, as Pope Francis released his fourth and final encyclical letter (on October 24, 2024—six months before his untimely death) with the title Dilexit Nos, or “He Loved Us.” The subtitle of that letter of Francis is “On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ,” and it focuses on the inspiring tradition of Catholic devotion to the Sacred Heart.

3. Authorship
If you are intrigued by the coincidence that two major papal documents, released just 18 months apart, bear such similar titles as Dilexit Nos and Dilexi Te, then you are not alone. Speculation that the late Pope Francis had a hand in producing the document that was eventually released by his successor Leo is confirmed in the very text of the new document. Pope Leo actually spilled the beans himself; in the third paragraph of his document, he testifies that his predecessor had started the document “in the last months of his life” but was unable to complete it, so the task fell to Leo.

Interestingly, Francis had similarly inherited a partially written encyclical letter at the start of his pontificate in 2013. Francis published it under the title Lumen Fidei (“The Light of Faith”) and half-jokingly described it as something he found in a drawer in the papal desk, leading to a document fittingly described as “a product of four hands,” namely two belonging to Francis and two belonging to his esteemed predecessor Pope Benedict XVI. In each instance, the collaborative work producing momentous church documents is eloquent testimony to the continuity of church teachings, where successive popes routinely reaffirm basic lines of doctrinal thought, even if each pope may place his own personal “spin” on certain teachings and add points of emphasis and priority. The takeaway is that the new pope (Leo) graciously received and completed a document started by his predecessor (Francis) in ways that benefit all the people of God.

4. Content and Message
The bulk of Dilexi Te consists of a survey of materials in scripture, church history, and Christian spirituality to reveal the centrality of charity and social justice in the life of the church, and especially to make the case that love for the poor is not optional for Christians. It would be blatantly contradictory to affirm one’s love for God while remaining indifferent to the suffering of the poor. Anyone purporting to follow the poor Jesus, the Son of God, who chose to live a humble life and who sought out the poor and outcast of society, must practice a special love and devotion to the well-being of the most vulnerable among our neighbors, near or far. As we read in paragraph 111, “By her very nature the Church is in solidarity with the poor, the excluded, the marginalized and all those considered the outcast of society.”

The third and longest of the document’s five chapters is titled “A Church for the Poor” (paragraphs 35-81) and it calls abundant attention to the many commendable practitioners of charitable and social justice work down through the centuries of church history. Some are quite famous, such as Saint Francis and Saint Claire of Assisi and their followers, while others deserve greater acclaim, such as Saint Joseph Calasanz of sixteenth-century Rome and Saint Dulce of the Poor in twentieth-century Brazil. Leo urges us to join these exemplary figures in spending time with the poor and lavishing loving attention upon them in their need.

Above all, those in desperate need are not just “a problem to be solved” but are truly our brothers and sisters, people we are called to see and devote attention to, even when we are tempted to look away from their suffering. Paragraph 104 states boldly: “No Christian can regard the poor simply as a societal problem; they are part of our family. They are one of us.” We must not allow ourselves to become the callous people who are so desensitized to the suffering in our midst that, on our way into Sunday Mass, we step over the homeless panhandler who might be begging for coins on the steps of our parish church. This latter scenario is a modern-day retelling of the parable of the Good Samaritan, as told by Jesus in chapter ten of the Gospel of Luke. Pope Francis frequently appealed to the image of the Good Samaritan (see the entirety of chapter 2 of his 2020 encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti) to strike the very same chords that his successor Leo is commending to us in this new document. Indeed, Leo devotes three paragraphs (#105-07) to the task of explicating this challenging parable about concern for the poor and victimized whom we encounter.

5. Looking ahead
What, then, may we expect Pope Leo to do and say in the future? Many have wondered how he, as the leader of a church of 1.4 billion members, will further this agenda of advocacy for the poor. Leo will surely seek to continue preaching love for the poor and encouraging almsgiving as well as structural change in society. It is a safe bet that he will follow up this relatively brief exhortation (the papal equivalent of a coach’s pep talk to motivate his followers and move them to action) with a longer treatment of the centrality of addressing poverty, probably in the form of a papal encyclical (with that genre’s more formal invocation of teaching authority).

We may also expect from Leo repeated references to the work of two of his predecessors. First, Pope Francis, who came to be known popularly as “the pope of the poor” and whom Leo evidently admires and explicitly reaffirms his continuity with. Expect to see Leo returning frequently to typical tropes of Pope Francis, such as commending “the culture of encounter” and indicting “the culture of indifference.” Second, Pope Leo XIII, the founder of modern Catholic social teaching and the admitted inspiration of the current Leo’s selection of a papal name. Leo XIII is remembered for acknowledging the rapidly changing social and economic context of the Industrial Revolution, and Leo XIV is likely to address the new challenges associated with the technological revolution of today, especially the impact of Artificial Intelligence on every aspect of our daily lives.

It is unlikely that this or any pope will discover easy and complete solutions to all the social and economic problems relating to poverty. But we may expect from Leo, a dedicated church leader shaped by extensive pastoral experience in struggling communities in rural Peru, a renewed commitment to deepening solidarity with those in greatest need. Tapping into his long experience in Latin America, Leo will prioritize the inclusion of the poor in all social decision-making processes, and insist on their participation in the structures of the economy, as holders of power not merely as passive victims. The pope is already advancing our collective growth in developing a spirituality that is congruent with the parable of the Good Samaritan, a fictional but inspiring figure who practiced commendable care for those wounded and vulnerable.
As with all church documents, there is no substitute for reading Dilexi Te yourself. The full text is just the length of a typical book chapter or a long journal article, so do not be intimidated into taking my word for the value of its messages.

You may find it on the Vatican website at:
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/apost_exhortations/documents/20251004-dilexi-te.html