If Peter reminds us that the poor are the heart of the Gospel

Andrea Tornielli

Dilexi te , the first apostolic exhortation of Leo XIV, is linked by its title to Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, Dilexit nos (October 2024), and is, in a certain way, its continuation. It is not a text on the Social Doctrine of the Church, nor does it delve into the analysis of specific problems. Rather, it proposes the foundations of Revelation, highlighting the strong link between the love of Christ and his call to be close to the poor. Indeed, the centrality of love for the poor is at the very heart of the Gospel and, therefore, cannot be reduced to a “hunch” of some Pontiffs or certain theological currents, nor can it be presented as a social and humanitarian consequence extrinsic to the Christian faith and its proclamation.

“Affection for the Lord is linked to affection for the poor,” Leo writes. They are, therefore, inseparable: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me,” Jesus says. Therefore, here “we are not on the horizon of charity, but of Revelation: contact with those who have neither power nor greatness is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history.”

The Pope observes that, unfortunately, Christians too run the risk of being “infected” by worldly attitudes, ideologies, and deceptive political and economic visions. The annoyance with which one sometimes hears talk of commitment to the poor, almost as if it were a distraction from the love and worship directed toward God, reveals the relevance of the document: “The fact that the exercise of charity is scorned or ridiculed, as if it were the obsession of some and not the incandescent core of the ecclesial mission, makes me think,” Leo XIV affirms, “that it is necessary to reread the Gospel, so as not to run the risk of replacing it with a worldly mentality.”

Through biblical quotations and commentaries from the Church Fathers, we are reminded that love for the poor is not an “optional path,” but rather represents “the criterion of true worship.” Illuminating, even for the Church today, are, for example, the words of Saint John Chrysostom and Saint Augustine: the former invites us to honor Jesus in the body of the poor, asking what sense it makes to have altars filled with golden chalices while Christ is exhausted by hunger at the doors of the church; the latter defines the poor as “the sacramental presence of the Lord,” seeing in caring for the poor concrete proof of the sincerity of faith: “He who claims to love God and has no compassion for the needy is lying.”

By virtue of this connection with the essence of the Christian message, the final part of  Dilexi  contains a call addressed to every baptized person to commit themselves concretely to the defense and advancement of the weakest: “It is the responsibility of all members of the People of God to make heard, in different ways, a voice that awakens, denounces, and exposes itself.” Even at the cost of appearing “stupid.” A message full of consequences for ecclesial and social life: the current economic-financial system and its “structures of sin” are not inescapable, and therefore it is possible to commit to thinking about and building, with the power of goodness, a different and more just society, through “a change of mentality, but also with the help of science and technology, through the development of effective policies for the transformation of society.”

The exhortation was initially prepared by Francis. It was adopted by his successor, Leo XIV, who, as a religious and later as a missionary bishop, shared much of his life with the poor, allowing himself to be evangelized by them.

“Dilexi te”, Leo XIV: faith cannot be separated from love for the poor

Salvatore Cernuzio

The first apostolic exhortation by Robert Francis Prevost has been published, a work initiated by Francis on the theme of service to the poor, in whose face we encounter “the suffering of the innocent.” The Pope denounces the economy that kills, the lack of equity, violence against women, malnutrition, and the educational crisis. He endorses Bergoglio’s appeal for migrants and asks believers to make “a voice of denouncement” heard, because “the structures of injustice must be destroyed with the power of good.”

Dilexi te , “I have loved you” (Rev 3:9). The love of Christ made flesh in love for the poor, understood as caring for the sick; the fight against slavery; the defense of women who suffer exclusion and violence; the right to education; accompaniment of migrants; almsgiving, which “is restored justice, not a gesture of paternalism”; equity, the lack of which is “the root of social evils.” Leo XIV signs his first apostolic exhortation,  Dilexi te , a 121-point text that springs from the Gospel of the Son of God, who became poor from his entry into the world and which relaunches the Church’s Magisterium on the poor in the last 150 years. “An authentic source of teaching.”

Following in the footsteps of their predecessors

With this document signed on October 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the Augustinian Pontiff follows in the footsteps of his predecessors: John XXIII, with his appeal to rich countries in Mater et Magistra not to remain indifferent to countries oppressed by hunger and misery (83); Paul VI, with Populorum Progressio and his intervention at the UN “as advocate of poor peoples”; John Paul II, who doctrinally consolidated “the Church’s preferential relationship with the poor”; Benedict XVI and Caritas in Veritate, with its “more markedly political” interpretation of the crises of the third millennium. Finally, Francis, who has made caring “for the poor” and “with the poor” one of the pillars of his pontificate.

A work started by Francisco and taken up by León

It was precisely Francis who, in the months before his death, had begun work on the apostolic exhortation. As with Benedict XVI’s Lumen Fidei, taken up in 2013 by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, on this occasion too it is his successor who completes the work, which represents a continuation of Dilexit nos, the Argentine Pope’s last encyclical on the Heart of Jesus. For the “link” between the love of God and the love of the poor is strong: through them, God “continues to have something to say to us,” affirms Pope Leo. And he recalls the theme of the “preferential option” for the poor, an expression born in Latin America (16) not to indicate “exclusivism or discrimination toward other groups,” but rather “the action of God who takes pity on the poverty and weakness of all humanity.”

“On the wounded faces of the poor we find the suffering of the innocent imprinted and, therefore, the suffering of Christ himself” (9).

The “faces” of poverty

There are numerous reasons for reflection and impulses to action in Robert Francis Prevost’s exhortation, which analyzes the “faces” of poverty. The poverty of “those without material means of support,” “those who are socially marginalized and have no tools to give voice to their dignity and their capabilities,” “moral,” “spiritual,” “cultural” poverty; the poverty “of those who have no rights, no space, no freedom” (9).

New forms of poverty and inequity

In this context, the Holy Father considers the commitment to eliminate the structural causes of poverty to be “insufficient” in societies marked “by numerous inequalities,” by the emergence of new forms of poverty that are “more subtle and dangerous” (10), and by economic norms that have increased wealth, “but without equity.”
“Lack of equity is the root of social evils” (94).

The dictatorship of an economy that kills

“When they say that the modern world has reduced poverty, they do so by measuring it with criteria from other times that are not comparable with today’s reality,” says Leo XIV (13). From this point of view, he maintains that “it is commendable that the United Nations has made the eradication of poverty one of the Millennium Development Goals.”

However, the road is long, especially in an era in which the “dictatorship of an economy that kills” is still in force, in which the profits of a few “grow exponentially”, while those of the majority are “increasingly far from the well-being of that happy minority” and in which “ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation” are spread (92).

Throwaway culture, market freedom, pastoral care of the elites

All this is a sign that there still persists—“sometimes well-masked”—a throwaway culture that “indifferently tolerates millions of people dying of hunger or surviving in conditions unworthy of human existence” (11). The Pontiff then condemns the “pseudo-scientific criteria” according to which it is “freedom of the market” that will lead to the “solution” to the problem of poverty, as well as the “pastoral care of the so-called elites,” according to which “instead of wasting time on the poor, it is better to concern themselves with the rich, the powerful, and the professionals.”

“Indeed, it is often perceived that, in fact, human rights are not equal for all” (94).

Transforming the mindset

What the Successor of Peter advocates is, therefore, “a change of mentality,” freeing oneself above all from the “illusion of happiness derived from a comfortable life.” This leads many people to a vision of existence centered on wealth and social success “at all costs,” even to the detriment of others and through “unjust political and social systems” (11).

“The dignity of every human person must be respected now, not tomorrow” (92).

In every rejected migrant, Christ is knocking at the door.

Leo XIV devotes a considerable amount of space to the topic of migration. He accompanies his words with the image of little Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy who in 2015 became a symbol of the European migration crisis with the photo of his lifeless body on a beach. “Unfortunately, apart from a few momentary emotions, similar events are becoming increasingly irrelevant, reduced to marginal news” (11), the Pontiff notes.

At the same time, it recalls the centuries-old work of the Church towards those forced to leave their lands, expressed in reception centres, border missions, efforts of Caritas International and other institutions (75).

“The Church, like a mother, walks with those who walk. Where the world sees a threat, she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges. She knows that the proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome; and that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the doors of the community” (75).

Still on the topic of migration, Robert Prevost embraces Pope Francis’s famous “four verbs”: “Welcome, protect, promote, and integrate.” He also borrows from the Argentine Pope the definition of the poor not only as objects of our compassion, but as “teachers of the Gospel.”

“Serving the poor is not a top-down gesture, but an encounter between equals… Therefore, when the Church bows down to the ground to care for the poor, she assumes her highest posture” (79).

Women victims of violence and exclusion

The Successor of Peter then refers to the present day, marked by thousands of people dying every day “from causes linked to malnutrition” (12). “Doubly poor,” he adds, are “women who suffer situations of exclusion, abuse and violence, because they often find themselves with fewer possibilities of defending their rights” (12).

“The poor are not there by chance”

Leo XIV reflects deeply on the very causes of poverty: “The poor are not there by chance or by a blind and bitter fate. Even less is poverty, for most of them, a choice. And yet, there are still some who dare to affirm it, showing blindness and cruelty,” he emphasizes (14). “Obviously among the poor there are also those who do not want to work,” but there are also many men and women who collect cardboard from morning to night only to “survive” and never to “truly improve” their lives. In short, we read in one of the central points of  Dilexi te , “we cannot say that most of the poor are so because they have not obtained ‘merits’, according to that false vision of meritocracy in which it would seem that only those who have been successful in life have merits” (14).

Ideologies and political orientations

Sometimes, Pope Leo observes, it is Christians themselves who allow themselves to be “infected by attitudes marked by worldly ideologies or by political and economic positions that lead to unjust generalizations and misleading conclusions.”

There are those who continue to say: “Our task is to pray and teach the true doctrine.” “But, disconnecting this religious aspect from integral promotion, they add that only the government should take care of them, or that it would be better to leave them in misery, so that they learn to work” (114).

Alms, often despised

A symptom of this mentality is the fact that the exercise of charity is sometimes “scorned or ridiculed, as if it were a matter of a fixation of some and not of the incandescent core of the ecclesial mission” (15). Leo XIV dwells at length on almsgiving, rarely practiced and often despised (115).

“As Christians, we do not renounce almsgiving. It is a gesture that can be done in different ways, and we can try to do it in the most effective way, but it must be done. And it will always be better to do something than to do nothing. In any case, it will touch our hearts. It will not be the solution to world poverty, which must be sought with intelligence, tenacity, and social commitment. But we need to practice almsgiving to touch the suffering flesh of the poor” (119).

Indifference on the part of Christians

Along the same lines, the Bishop of Rome refers to “the lack or even absence of commitment” to the defense and promotion of the most disadvantaged in some Christian movements or groups (112). If an ecclesial community does not cooperate in the inclusion of all, he warns, “it too will run the risk of dissolution, even if it speaks about social issues or criticizes governments. It will easily end up mired in spiritual worldliness, disguised by religious practices, fruitless meetings, or empty speeches” (113).

“It must be said without hesitation that there is an inseparable link between our faith and the poor” (36).

The right to education

The Pontiff also recalls the example of Saint Joseph Calasanz, who founded the first free popular school in Europe (69), to underline the importance of the education of the poor: “It is not a favor, but a duty.”

“Children have the right to wisdom, as a basic requirement for the recognition of human dignity” (72).

The struggle of popular movements

In the exhortation, the Successor of Peter also refers to the struggle against the “destructive effects of the empire of money” by popular movements, led by leaders “often under suspicion or even persecuted” (80). These, he maintains, “invite us to overcome ‘that idea of ​​social policies conceived as a policy toward the poor but never with the poor, never of the poor’” (81).

A voice that awakens and denounces

In the final pages of the document, the Holy Father calls on all the People of God to make their voice heard, “in various ways, to awaken, to denounce, and to expose themselves, even at the cost of appearing ‘stupid.'”

“The structures of injustice must be recognized and destroyed with the force of good, through a change of mentality, but also with the help of science and technology, through the development of effective policies for the transformation of society” (97).

The poor, not a social problem, but the center of the Church

It is necessary that “we all allow ourselves to be evangelized by the poor,” the Pope exhorts (102). “Christians cannot consider the poor merely as a social problem; they are a ‘family matter,’ they are ‘one of us.’” Consequently, “our relationship with them cannot be reduced to an activity or an office of the Church” (104).

“The poor are at the center of the Church” (111).