Church must 'walk poor with the poor' to serve Christ, says Pope Leo in new exhortation

(OSV News) -- In his first apostolic exhortation, Pope Leo XIV has taken up the call of Pope Francis for Christians to see in the poor the very face of Christ -- and to be a church that "walks poor with the poor" in order to authentically live out the Gospel.

"Dilexi Te" ("I Have Loved You") was publicly released Oct. 9, having been signed on Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, whose radical embrace of poverty and service to the poor is presented as a key example in the exhortation.

The document, which totals more than 21,000 words spanning five chapters, takes its title from Rv. 3:9, in which Christ addresses "a Christian community that, unlike some others, had no influence or resources, and was treated instead with violence and contempt," wrote Pope Leo.

The exhortation completes one that "Pope Francis was preparing in the last months of his life" -- namely, an apostolic exhortation on the church's care for the poor that built on the late pope's 2024 encyclical "Dilexit Nos," said Pope Leo.

"I am happy to make this document my own -- adding some reflections -- and to issue it at the beginning of my own pontificate, 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," wrote Pope Leo, who retained Pope Francis' planned title for the work.

Pope Leo said he, like his predecessor, considered it "essential to insist on this path to holiness," since -- as Pope Francis wrote in his 2018 apostolic exhortation "Gaudete et Exsultate" -- "in this call to recognize him in the poor and the suffering, we see revealed the very heart of Christ, his deepest feelings and choices, which every saint seeks to imitate."

The exhortation draws extensively on Scripture, papal and conciliar documents, the works of the Church Fathers and the lives of numerous saints -- as well as the "ecclesial discernment" of the Latin American bishops, to whom Pope Leo said he was "greatly indebted," having previously served as an Augustinian missionary in Peru for several years.

-- Poor as a priority --

Throughout the document, Pope Leo urges Christians to recognize God's oneness with the poor, and to prioritize them according to the demands of faith.

"Love for the Lord ... is one with love for the poor," wrote the pope, observing later in the document that "Jesus' teaching on the primacy of love for God is clearly complemented by his insistence that one cannot love God without extending one's love to the poor."

In an even more direct passage, Pope Leo admitted, "I often wonder, even though the teaching of Sacred Scripture is so clear about the poor, why many people continue to think that they can safely disregard the poor."

He stressed that poverty is "a multifaceted phenomenon," and that "there are many forms of poverty."

Among those are material impoverishment; social marginalization; moral, spiritual and cultural poverty; "personal or social weakness or fragility"; and "the poverty of those who have no rights, no space, no freedom."

In addition, said Pope Leo, forms of poverty have continued to evolve in ways that are "sometimes more subtle and dangerous."

He warned that "in general, we are witnessing an increase in different kinds of poverty, which is no longer a single, uniform reality but now involves multiple forms of economic and social impoverishment, reflecting the spread of inequality even in largely affluent contexts."

Globally, women often bear the brunt of poverty in its various manifestations, said Pope Leo, citing Pope Francis' 2020 encyclical "Fratelli Tutti."

-- Causes, challenges of poverty --

Throughout the text of his exhortation, Pope Leo examined personal, cultural, social and systemic factors that both incur poverty and prevent its eradication -- all of which, in essence, derive from a disregard for the sanctity of every human life.

"The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate. Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice," said Pope Leo. "Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty."

He pointed to a culture -- one "sometimes well disguised" -- that "discards others without even realizing it and tolerates with indifference that millions of people die of hunger or survive in conditions unfit for human beings."

The pope also deplored "that specious view of meritocracy that sees only the successful as 'deserving.'"

Such views fuel structures of sin in society that, as Pope Francis said in "Dilexit Nos," are often "part of a dominant mindset that considers normal or reasonable what is merely selfishness and indifference," wrote Pope Leo.

As a result, said Pope Leo, "It then becomes normal to ignore the poor and live as if they do not exist," and "likewise seems reasonable to organize the economy in such a way that sacrifices are demanded of the masses in order to serve the needs of the powerful."

Christians themselves have not been immune from "attitudes shaped by secular ideologies or political and economic approaches that lead to gross generalizations and mistaken conclusions," wrote Pope Leo.

"The fact that some dismiss or ridicule charitable works, as if they were an obsession on the part of a few and not the burning heart of the Church's mission, convinces me of the need to go back and re-read the Gospel, lest we risk replacing it with the wisdom of this world," he reflected. "The poor cannot be neglected if we are to remain within the great current of the Church's life that has its source in the Gospel and bears fruit in every time and place."

Pope Leo noted that almsgiving "nowadays is not looked upon favorably even among believers,", being "rarely practiced" and "even at times disparaged."

While "the most important way to help the disadvantaged is to assist them in finding a good job," he said, "we cannot risk abandoning others to the fate of lacking the necessities for a dignified life."

"Almsgiving at least offers us a chance to halt before the poor, to look into their eyes, to touch them and to share something of ourselves with them," a way of bringing "a touch of 'pietas' into a society otherwise marked by the frenetic pursuit of personal gain," said Pope Leo.

-- A 'preferential option for the poor' --

Since Christ chose to become poor by taking on human frailty and flesh, "we can also speak theologically of a preferential option on the part of God for the poor," said Pope Leo.

He explained that the expression -- which "arose in the context of the Latin American continent" and has been "well integrated into subsequent teachings of the Church" -- does not imply "exclusivity or discrimination" towards other groups, but rather speaks of God's compassion.

"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," said Pope Leo.

He cited in detail several of the "numerous witnesses from disciples of Christ spanning almost two millennia" who have exemplified that choice in their lives: the first deacons in the early church, the Church Fathers, monastics, mendicants, popular movements and modern saints, including St. Teresa of Kolkata.

Pope Leo said that St. Augustine, patron of his religious order, saw the poor as "not just people to be helped, but the sacramental presence of the Lord" -- and "caring for the poor as concrete proof of the sincerity of faith."

Migrants have always been of special concern to the church, since "the experience of migration accompanies the history of the People of God," said the pope, adding that "the Church's tradition of working for and with migrants continues," with such service now "expressed in initiatives such as refugee reception centers, border missions and the efforts of Caritas Internationalis and other institutions."

-- 'A history that continues' --

The church's long history of caring for the poor continues, formed and forged in particular by the development of its social doctrine over the past 150 years, said Pope Leo.

Among the examples he listed were "Rerum Novarum," the 1891 encyclical on capital and labor issued by Pope Leo XIII, and the documents of the Second Vatican Council, which Pope Leo described as "a milestone in the Church's understanding of the poor in God's saving plan."

The works of St. John Paul II consolidated "the Church's preferential relationship with the poor was consolidated, particularly from a doctrinal standpoint," he said, with the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI on the subject taking "a more distinctly political turn" in the face of "the multiple crises that marked the beginning of the third millennium."

Pope Francis recognized the insights of national and regional bishops' conferences regarding the church's relationship with the poor, he said.

And, said Pope Leo, "the epochal change we are now undergoing" requires "a constant interaction between the faithful and the Church's Magisterium" on the matter, while also listening to the impoverished themselves, who are "possessed of unique insights indispensable to the Church and to humanity as a whole."

"Lives can actually be turned around by the realization that the poor have much to teach us about the Gospel and its demands," wrote Pope Leo.

In the poorest of the poor, he said, "Christ continues to suffer and rise again" -- and "it is in them that the Church rediscovers her call to show her most authentic self."