With great anticipation, on October 9 Pope Leo XIV released the first major teaching document of his papacy, the apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te. The document focuses on love for the poor or, to use a term introduced more recently, the “preferential option for the poor” (#90).
The document adopts the same “see-judge-act” structure used by Pope Francis in several of his documents, beginning with a survey of the challenge to be addressed, continuing with an outline of relevant scriptural and theological themes, and ending with an exhortation to action. The first chapter describes the challenge of poverty today and some of the “ideological prejudices” that create obstacles to addressing that challenge. The second chapter offers a theological meditation on God’s love for the poor and the poverty of Christ, followed by an overview of how love for the poor was lived out by God’s people in the Old and New Testaments. In the third chapter, Pope Leo provides a lengthy history of the Church’s efforts to minister to the poor, and chapter four follows with a survey of modern Catholic social teaching. Finally, the last chapter offers pastoral guidelines for how the Church can live out the love for the poor today.
Dilexi Te, not surprisingly, is a rich document that could be analyzed from many angles. Rather than simply summarizing the document, which others have ably done (for example, here and here), I want to highlight what I see as some of the underlying themes. I will offer two reflections on the apostolic exhortation—this one and a second hopefully next week—roughly corresponding to the first and second halves of the document, respectively. In today’s reflection, after providing some brief remarks on the document’s origins, I will focus on what it has to say about the Church, a community “which is poor and for the poor” (#35). In the later reflection, I will focus on what Dilexi Te has to say about Tradition and modern Catholic social teaching.
Early in the document, Pope Leo reveals that Pope Francis had been working on, and had nearly completed, Dilexi Te in the last months of his life. Leo then states, “I am happy to make this document my own,” also adding that he has added some reflections of his own (#3). This dual authorship is not unprecedented—Pope Francis’s first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, had been mostly authored by Pope Benedict XVI prior to his 2013 resignation. Lumen Fidei, however, was soon largely forgotten. Dilexi Te, meanwhile, has so far garnered significant attention, no doubt because of its topic, but also because of the hope that it would reveal something of Pope Leo’s agenda for his pontificate. That hope is somewhat stymied by the fact that Francis wrote most of the document, but by making the document his own, Leo at the very least has demonstrated a desire to emphasize continuity with his predecessor.
Pope Leo points out that Dilexi Te should be read in continuity with Francis’s final and similarly named encyclical Dilexit Nos, on devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (#3). As Leo explains, that encyclical focused on “the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ,” including His love for the poor (#2). Although Leo doesn’t mention it, Dilexi Te also seems to bring to a conclusion a trilogy of documents inspired by the life and spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, the thirteenth-century preacher, mystic, and founder of the Franciscan order. Pope Francis’s 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’ opens with a reflection on Francis of Assisi’s love for all creation, and the 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti opens by recounting Francis’s meeting with Sultan Malik-el-Kamil in Egypt during the Fifth Crusade as an example of fraternity. Similarly, Dilexi Te opens with a brief remark on St. Francis’s conversion as a result of his encounter with the poor (##6-7).
Dilexi Te also has a great deal in common with Pope Benedict XVI’s Deus Caritas Est, on Christian love. The earlier document touches on similar themes: the centrality of love to God’s identity, made manifest in the world by Jesus’ Incarnation; the identity of the Church as a “community of love”; and the embodiment of this love in the Church’s charitable work and in Catholic social teaching. Oddly, then, Deus Caritas Est is never cited in Dilexi Te, although Pope Benedict’s encyclical Caritas in Veritate is mentioned in the section on Catholic social teaching.
In his commentary on Dilexi Te, theologian Larry Chapp concludes that, while “profound and beautiful,” the document “says very little that is new in the sense of a theological novelty, says hardly anything even mildly controversial, and is at pains to position itself as in total continuity with the Tradition.” Although I think Chapp is largely right in his assessment, the fact that Dilexi Te does not introduce novelty or generate controversy doesn’t mean that Pope Leo is not staking out significant positions in ongoing conversations within the Church.
For example, in his reflection on the document, Michael Sean Winters writes:
Leo continues one of the principal hallmarks of Catholic social teaching in the post-conciliar era, especially in the writings of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. For all three, there is a clear emphasis on the anthropological and dogmatic roots of our social teaching. This is not mere ethics. The ethics flow from the self-revelation of God in Jesus Christ.
Just as Laudato Si’ was not simply an encyclical on care for the environment, but rather presents a profound theology of creation, Dilexi Te is a theological meditation on God’s “preferential” love for the poor (#16) and its sacramental embodiment in the Church. As Winters explains, the new document seeks to demonstrate how the Church’s social mission and doctrine are integrated.
Pope Leo asserts that “God is merciful love” (#16, emphasis added), and that in the Old Testament this love was made manifest by God’s self-revelation as “the friend and liberator of the poor, the one who hears the cry of the poor and intervenes to free them” (#17). Echoing St. Paul’s insistence that Christ “emptied himself” and “humbled himself” through the Incarnation and Crucifixion (Phil. 2:7-8), Leo explains that Christ demonstrated His love for the poor by His poverty:
Precisely in order to share the limitations and fragility of our human nature, he himself became poor and was born in the flesh like us. We came to know him in the smallness of a child laid in a manger and in the extreme humiliation of the cross, where he shared our radical poverty, which is death. (#16)
Jesus’ love for the poor was also, of course, demonstrated by his own experience of poverty and his public ministry to the poor (##18-23).
Leo goes on to say that the People of God should be images of God’s love for the poor through their own actions. He cites the First Letter of John, which states, “Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (4:20). Love for the poor is not simply something the Church does, however, but something central to its identity. He evokes the words of Pope Francis, that the Church should be “a Church which is poor and for the poor” (#35).
Much later in the document, Leo also cites a speech given by Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro, then the Archbishop of Bologna, at the Second Vatican Council, in which Lercaro stated, “The mystery of Christ in the Church has always been and today is, in a particular way, the mystery of Christ in the poor.” Leo adds that Lercaro’s speech reflected
. . . a growing sense of the need for a new image of Church, one simpler and more sober, embracing the entire people of God and its presence in history. A Church more closely resembling her Lord than worldly powers and working to foster a concrete commitment on the part of all humanity to solving the immense problem of poverty in the world. (#84)
In fact, although Pope Leo doesn’t mention it, Lercaro’s speech inspired the 1965 Pact of the Catacombs, in which several of the bishops present for the council committed to live a simpler a life and to disassociating the Church from the worldly trappings that had accumulated over the centuries. Much the same spirit was reflected in Justicia in Mundo, the document produced by the 1971 Synod of Bishops:
In regard to temporal possessions, whatever be their use, it must never happen that the evangelical witness which the Church is required to give becomes ambiguous. The preservation of certain positions of privilege must constantly be submitted to the test of this principle. Although in general it is difficult to draw a line between what is needed for right use and what is demanded by prophetic witness, we must certainly keep firmly to this principle: our faith demands of us a certain sparingness in use, and the Church is obliged to live and administer its own goods in such a way that the Gospel is proclaimed to the poor. If instead the Church appears to be among the rich and the powerful of this world its credibility is diminished. (#47)
For his own part, Pope Leo challenges the view that
. . . we should opt for pastoral work with the so-called elite, since, rather than wasting time on the poor, it would be better to care for the rich, the influential and professionals, so that with their help real solutions can be found and the Church can feel protected. (#114)
Steven P. Millies notes that Leo’s words challenge certain segments of the US Catholic Church, such as the Napa Institute, the latter of which regularly hosts events inviting prelates to gather with wealthy business owners to discuss the future of the Church. Pope Leo’s stance in Dilexi Te certainly has implications for the Church in other parts of the world, as well, such as his second home, Peru, where the Church was long closely connected with the wealthy and powerful, and where even today factions within the Church are allied with the political and social elites.
Although, as a theologian, I’m drawn to the theological and ecclesiological reflections in chapter two, I think the third chapter, which tells the story of Catholic ministry to the poor over the centuries, is the most interesting. One reason why is I can’t think of another major magisterial document that includes such a lengthy historical narrative. After all, these documents are usually aimed at explaining points of doctrine or encouraging the faithful. What purpose does this section of Dilexi Te serve?
For one, if the Church is to be “poor and for the poor,” then this historical narrative provides the faithful with diverse examples of how love for the poor can be lived out. It illustrates how Christians have responded to changing needs—for example, it explains how the early Church’s practices of visiting the sick and tending wounds have evolved into today’s Catholic hospitals and clinics—in a variety of contexts. That being said, I think the presentation of this “cloud of witnesses” (Heb. 12:1) not only provides the faithful with encouragement in their own efforts but also serves a deeper theological purpose.
Although the word “synodality” does not appear in Dilexi Te, I would argue that the message of Leo’s apostolic exhortation is closely linked to Pope Francis’s initiative to make the Church more deeply synodal, now taken up by Pope Leo. The recent Synod on Synodality’s Final Document, For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission, explains that the Church’s synodality is rooted in the plurality of charisms in the Church:
In the Christian community, all the Baptised are enriched with gifts to share, each according to his or her vocation and way or condition of life. The various ecclesial vocations are many, yet they express the one Baptismal call to holiness and mission. (#57)
Dilexi Te, then, demonstrates how Christians with a variety of vocations and conditions of life have contributed to the Church’s mission through love for the poor. For example, the document describes: the establishment of the diaconate in the New Testament book of Acts (#37); bishops from the early Church like St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine who exhorted the faithful to serve the poor (##41-48); the role of Benedictine monasteries in offering hospitality to travelers and the sick (##55-56); the foundation in the thirteenth century of the mendicant orders, whose members became poor to serve the poor (##63-67); active religious orders dedicated to freeing prisoners (##59-62) and educating the poor (##68-72); and modern saints dedicated to the poor, like St. Teresa of Calcutta and St. Dulce of the Poor (##77-78), among others.
To be fair, as Kevin Ahern points out, all the specific individuals mentioned in chapter three are ordained clergy or members of religious orders. No individual lay people are mentioned, despite the fact that the medieval and early modern lay confraternities who served the sick and imprisoned, Frédéric Ozanam, the 19th-century founder of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, Dorothy Day, and many others all deserve a place in this history.
Even so, Dilexi Te does seem to acknowledge the growing role of lay people in serving the poor. For example, as I already noted, the document recognizes the contribution of contemporary Catholic hospitals and clinics, which are primarily staffed by lay people, to serving the sick (#52), and it likewise highlights the work of refugee reception centers and border missions, again mostly staffed by lay people (#75). Finally, Pope Leo recognizes the role of “popular movements made up of lay people and led by popular leaders” (#80) in working on behalf of the poor in the contemporary world.
Pope Leo seems to identify this synodal dimension to the Church’s love for the poor. He writes, for example, that today, “All the members of the People of God have a duty to make their voices heard, albeit in different ways, in order to point out and denounce such structural issues [that cause poverty], even at the cost of appearing foolish or naïve” (#97). Similarly, he explains, “[W]e must feel bound to invite everyone to share in the light and life born of recognizing Christ in the faces of the suffering and those in need” (#103, emphasis added).
The Synod’s Final Document also insists that deepening synodality includes listening to the poor and the greater inclusion of the poor in the life of the Church. It states:
The Church is called to be poor with those who are poor, who often constitute the majority of the faithful, to listen to them, learning together how to recognise the charisms they receive from the Spirit. The Church also needs to learn to recognise them as agents of evangelisation. (#19)
These conclusions are also echoed in Dilexi Te. For example, Pope Leo writes, “No Christian can regard the poor simply as a societal problem; they are part of our ‘family.’ They are ‘one of us’” (#104). More concretely, Leo, drawing on the document produced by the 2007 gathering of the Episcopal Conference of Latin America and the Caribbean in Aparecida, Brazil, teaches that the Church should recognize the poor as subjects with their own voices rather than as objects of charity. The poor are “agents of evangelization” who likewise engage in solidarity with others (#100). Dilexi Te, therefore, not only calls for a Church of the poor, but a synodal Church of the poor.
In addition to providing diverse examples of the Church’s love for the poor, Pope Leo clearly states one other reason for the historical narrative in chapter three: to establish that the preferential option for the poor has a foundation in the Church’s Tradition. He writes:
I have chosen to recall the age-old history of the Church’s care for the poor and with the poor in order to make clear that it has always been a central part of her life. Indeed, caring for the poor is part of the Church’s great Tradition, a beacon as it were of evangelical light to illumine the hearts and guide the decisions of Christians in every age. (#103)
As Chapp puts it, Leo is demonstrating that his teaching is “in total continuity with the Tradition.” But I think Pope Leo is also doing something more provocative here by rooting the preferential option for the poor in “the Church’s great Tradition,” which I’ll explain next week.
Apropos of Pope Leo's intent to be a poor church, I just noticed Robert Mickens' Letter From the Vatican: https://www.ucanews.com/news/a-low-key-pontificate-starts-to-shift-gears/110587 He writes of the financial reforms in progress. Note also the info about Fr, Harry Bury's plan explained in one of the comments. Very interesting.
Thanks, Matthew. Is the Vatican practicing what Pope Leo is preaching? Do you think there are unnecessary expenditures that he will eliminate? I may be wrong but Tradition looks expensive to me at times. There seems to be a need for the NAPA brethren.
T