In continuity with the legacy of his beloved Francis, now that six months have passed since his death, Leo XIV has published his apostolic exhortation  Dilexi te  (DT), on “love for the poor.” Indeed, continuing the Tradition with Sacred Scripture and the Holy Fathers or Doctors—the saints themselves—united with the Magisterium of the Church with its Social Doctrine (DSI) of previous Popes, DT teaches us the truest, most beautiful, and best of an authentic theology and spirituality of “preferential love for the poor.” This is also what the Bishops in Latin America have transmitted with the Conferences of Medellín and Puebla, all the way to Aparecida, or in Spain, with two memorable documents such as “The Church and the Poor” and “Church, Servant of the Poor,” which we also highly recommend.

First, the core and Christological basis of this choice. The Eternal and Only Son of the Father, the Word of God Incarnate in Jesus Christ, is born and becomes poor and humble; he humbles himself with the least, with the poor and the victims or slaves, to give us his love, mercy, and solidarity with humankind, with the suffering, evil, and injustice they endure. This is what the Word of God, the Gospels of the Infancy (in Matthew and Luke), and the Pauline Letters themselves (1 and 2 Corinthians and Philemon) show us. Jesus was incarnated and born into a poor family; his mother was a simple, humiliated, and insignificant woman who gave birth in a manger with animals, in a peripheral place like Bethlehem. Christ lived on the outskirts of the Roman Empire and Jewish power, in Nazareth, while his father and he himself were impoverished workers (DT 18-20). Jesus proclaims the Kingdom of God and his justice to the poor, manifesting his mission: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has consecrated me through his anointing.” ” He sent me to bring good news to the poor ” (Lk 4:18; cf.  Is 61:1). He, therefore, presents himself as the One who comes to manifest in today’s history the loving closeness of God, which is above all a work of liberation for those who are prisoners of evil, for the weak and the poor (DT 21).

This has been clearly demonstrated by the Second Vatican Council (LG 8) and by the Popes, for example, Benedict XVI in Aparecida or in DCE and especially Francis in EG (chap. IV), LS or FT. Hence, this Tradition (DT 45-46) and Magisterium of the Church sees in the poor: a sacrament (presence) of this incarnate Christ, poor, humble and crucified, united to the definitive criterion of salvation, which is this fraternal love and justice for the poor, in which we find the poor Christ (Mt 25:31-46). Truly, “Jesus identifies with the poor” (Benedict XVI, DCE 15). As St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II particularly emphasize with their teaching and DSI, which underlines this “preferential option for the poor…. The Church’s love for the poor is decisive and belongs to her constant tradition…. Love for humanity and, first, for the poor, in whom the Church sees Christ, is made concrete in the promotion of justice” (St. John Paul II, CA 57-58). The Lord Jesus is incarnated (made flesh) in the poor (DT 110).

Certainly, the Word of God, along with the Church and theology, transmits to us the foundations of  theological anthropology  that sustain this love for the poor. The Gift of Grace, with the Love of God the Father in Christ and his Spirit poured out into the depths of our being and heart (Rom 5:5), leads us to this life and the theological virtues of faith: hope and charity, which are indissolubly united; and whose primacy is held by that most important virtue: charity (1 Cor 13), the Love of God and of others, which, authentically realized in the promotion of justice, are inseparable (DCE 17), as Benedict XVI also teaches in the Constitution (n. 6).

In this sense, as the Bible already communicates with the prophets (DT 17) and said Tradition with the holy fathers (DT 41) together with the teaching of the Church, the true worship of God with the liturgy and the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, cannot be separated from life, from this loving solidarity and commitment to justice for the poor (DCE 14-15). In this regard, the Spanish bishops affirm that “Jesus left us two sacraments of his presence: one, sacramental, within the community: the Eucharist; and the other existential, in the neighborhood and in the town, in the slum of the suburbs, among the marginalized… Just as our faith discovers Christ in the Eucharist, which is his Mystical Body, as the Church of the early centuries called it, or in our hearts through the Spirit given to us, we must also awaken our faith to discover him in all people, especially those most in need. We cannot affirm one aspect without the other, nor deny one without denying the other” (IP 22, 132).

For this reason, as St. John XXIII stated with Vatican II (LG 8, GS 1) and St. John Paul II in LE (n. 8), Francis has emphasized that the Church of Jesus is the poor Church with the poor  (DT 35-36). These ecclesiological keys to the option for the poor are made explicit, continuing with Vatican II, and are expressed in what is most important for the Church. That is, the universal vocation to holiness, to which we are all called as the People of God, walking together synodically, at the service of the evangelizing mission that announces, celebrates and serves the Kingdom of God that brings this love, life and justice to the poor. It is the Samaritan Church, from Mercy, which is embodied by the humanized God, Jesus Christ, who directs it to exercise all this fraternal solidarity and justice with the poor (DT 109-11).

In this way, as the history of the church expresses (DT, chap. III) true spirituality and holiness is realized in the mission at the service of transmitting faith and love for God, for the church and for others, with this spiritual poverty, evangelical of the Beatitudes  (Mt 5, 3-11).  That is, the communion of faith, of life, of goods and action of solidarity for justice with the poor that, as a poor church, saves us and frees us from selfishness and idols of wealth – being rich, from power and violence. Along these lines, the DSI has been developing as a way of this charity, love and justice with the poor (DT, Chap. IV), with its values ​​and principles or keys.

Such as the sacred and inviolable life and dignity of persons, of peoples and of the poor with their “popular movements”, as images and children of God, being protagonists of the evangelizing mission, of wisdom, of culture, of education, of their development, promotion and integral liberation (DT 99-102). Against all welfare or paternalism and elitism (DT 114), against the false gods of power, of possessing and having before being. A promotion and integral liberation from personal, social,  structural and historical sin, those “structures of sin” and injustice that dominate and impoverish, causing ever greater inequalities, injustice and exclusion. Such as this dominant economy that kills, the dictatorship of the market, speculative financial-banking technocracy, the fetishism of money, the throwaway culture and the globalization of indifference (DT 90-98); in opposition to that ideologized and individualistic understanding of the poor and poverty, which blames, stigmatizes and demonizes them.

As can be seen, all this essential social and political charity that calls us to “commitment to ‘resolving the structural causes of poverty'” (DT 91) is very important… “We must commit ourselves ever more to resolving the structural causes of poverty. It is an urgent matter that cannot wait, not only because of a pragmatic need to obtain results and to organize society, but also to heal it from a disease that makes it fragile and unworthy and that can only lead to new crises. Assistance plans, which address certain emergencies, should only be thought of as temporary responses.” Lack of equity “is the root of social evils.” Indeed, “it is often perceived that, in fact, human rights are not equal for all”. (DT 94).

True solidarity, an essential human and spiritual virtue inseparable from charity (love), as Saint John Paul II (SRS) teaches us, is to share even the necessities of life and to “fight against the structural causes of poverty, inequality, lack of work, land and housing, and the denial of social and labor rights. It is to confront the destructive effects of the empire of money […]. Solidarity, understood in its deepest sense, is a way of making history, and that is what popular movements do.”(DT 81). Here we must emphasize the decisive importance of decent work, rather than such plans or subsidies and the like (LE), the dignified life of the worker with his agency and his rights, such as a “fair wage,” which comes before capital (DT 87).   The universal destination of goods, since by justice we can only possess what is necessary for living, “restoring” everything that is owed to the poor, who have priority over property.

In this sense, DSI, as an essential element of the evangelizing mission with its action of charity and love, is synthesized in this search for human development and integral ecology, welcoming the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth; promoting social and environmental justice with a “global bioethics” that protects life in all its phases or dimensions, all victims, the poor, the discarded, migrant brothers and sisters, etc. To conclude—as we have already noted—all this universality of love-charity and justice for the poor of the earth, beyond all borders (DT 120), which leads us to full life, transcendence and eternity, has been borne witness to throughout history by the saints. For example, Saint Francis (DT 6) and Archbishop Romero, witnesses of all this Love of God with his preferential option for the poor (DT 89).