On October 4^th, Pope Leo signed Dilexi Te, his first Apostolic Exhortation. The document, which was much anticipated as a window into the thoughts of our new Pontif, was released today, October 9^th. As Pope Leo explains in his introduction to the document, Pope Francis was preparing to issue this letter at the time of his death. Pope Leo completed his work, adding reflections of his own and mingling them with the words of his “beloved predecessor.” The result is a powerful admonition to love those who face various forms of poverty in our world through our actions of care.

The following are ten of the best passages from Dilexi Te accompanied by my initial reactions to them. I cannot say that these are “the best” passages because there are many that rival these and I highly suggest reading the document in its entirety.

Love for the Lord, then, is one with love for the poor. The same Jesus who tells us, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26:11), also promises the disciples, “I am with you always” (Mt 28:20). We likewise think of his saying: “Just as you did it to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. (Paragraph 5)

From the very beginning of Dilexi Te, Pope Leo is careful to ground his teachings in historical authority. He begins by connecting his overarching lesson – that to love God, we must love the poor – to Biblical support. Throughout the document, Pope Leo relies heavily on citations from other sources which helps to convey that his teachings are not new but emerge from a continuous tradition. Here, he uses Jesus’ own words to convey his message: what you did to the least of these, you did to Me.

In a later paragraph, Pope Leo expands this idea of poverty and lowliness, recognizing that there are many ways that people are impoverished in our world today. He provides the examples of material poverty, social marginalization, moral and spiritual poverty, cultural poverty, sickness and conditions that cause vulnerability, and lack of dignity and freedom. He expands on these forms of poverty throughout the course of the document.

This “preference” (for the poor) never indicates exclusivity or discrimination towards other groups which would be impossible for God. It is meant to emphasize God’s actions, which are moved by compassion toward the poverty and weakness of all humanity. Wanting to inaugurate a kingdom of justice, fraternity and solidarity, God has a special place in his heart for those who are discriminated against and, and he asks us, his Church, to make a decisive and radical choice in favor or the weakest.” (Paragraph 16)

Here, Pope Leo addresses an understandable emotional response to the idea of a preferential option for the poor. He explains that this preference does not diminish God’s love for those who have plenty. Instead, His heart for the poor is intricately tied to His justice and love. God is like a parent whose love and care for the needs of one child does not diminish love for another.

Additionally, later in Dilexi Te, Pope Leo explains that the poor ministers to those with plenty by aiding in their conversion and true understanding and worship of God. Rather than care being a one-directional action within the Church, Pope Leo sees it as bi-directional.

Finally, this passage is written in the context of a discussion about how God chose to send His son into a life of poverty so that, through His ultimate poverty on the cross, we could become rich.

Already at the dawn of Christianity, the Apostles laid their hands on seven men chosen from the community. To a certain extent, they integrated them into their own ministry, instituting them for service – diakonia in Greek – of the poorest (cf. Acts 6:1-5). It is significant that the first disciple to bear witness to his faith in Christ to the point of shedding his blood was Stephen, who belonged to this group. In him, the witness of caring for the poor and of martyrdom are united. (Paragraph 37)

Reading Dilexi te, one cannot help but think that Pope Leo was anticipating the arguments that would be made against it. Likely because of the many attacks made on Pope Francis’s teachings related to continuity, Pope Leo wastes no time in showing the continuity of teachings on poverty. In fact, he explains that they have their roots in the dawn of the Church. Pope Leo highlights the privileged place that those who serve the poor had within the early Church and then goes a step further linking them to the first martyr – Stephen.

Later in Dilexi Te, Pope Leo will connect charity with the sacraments and liturgical life, but he is already setting the stage for this argument by linking it to martyrdom.

The Christian presence among the sick reveals that salvation is not an abstract idea, but concrete action. In the act of healing a wound, the Church proclaims that the Kingdom of God begins among the most vulnerable…When the Church kneels beside a leper, a malnourished child or an anonymous dying person, she fulfills her deepest vocation: to love the Lord where he is most disfigured. (Paragraph 52)

Pope Leo recognizes the poverty of sickness and the significant role that the Church has played in healing illness since early times. His imagery here highlights how this kind of profound charity is fundamentally opposed to our instincts for self-preservation. We are reminded that caring for the poor is often difficult and even unpleasant at times, but the Lord is present, even when we find it challenging to see Him in those we serve.

Religious did not see redemption (of those in bondage) as a political or economic action, but as a quasi-liturgical act, the sacramental offering of themselves. Many gave their own bodies to replace prisoners, literally fulfilling the commandment: ‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends’ (Jn 15:13). (Paragraph 61)

Now Pope Leo shifts his attention towards the poverty of bondage and imprisonment. He recounts some of the ways that the Church fought against slavery in the past. In fact, he describes their work as a “sacramental” offering that mirrors the sacrifice that Christ made to set us free.

For the Christian faith, the education of the poor is not a favor, but a duty. Children have a right to knowledge as a fundamental requirement for the recognition of human dignity. Teaching them affirms their value, giving them tools to transform their reality. Christian tradition considers knowledge a gift from God and a community responsibility. (Paragraph 72)

Pope Leo now addresses a different kind of poverty: the poverty of knowledge. He describes the material and spiritual disparities that limited access to education causes and says that it is a Christian duty to fight against them. In the same way that withholding wealth from those in need is stealing, restricting access to knowledge constitutes theft.

Where the world sees threats, she (the Church) sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges. She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community. (Paragraph 75)

Not surprisingly for a new Pope who has already spoken about the struggles of migrants, Pope Leo includes care for migrants as an essential aspect of our care for the poor. He traces this Christian obligation back to the newborn Church which experienced discrimination against its Greek members. Pope Leo says that Christians must work to care for migrants and to integrate them into society, not allowing them to be marginalized. In fact, he ties our treatment of migrants to our credibility as witnesses for the Gospel.

The central sentence in this passage, “She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome,” is reminiscent of many of Pope Francis’s admonitions and raise the question of whether, like his predecessor, Pope Leo will apply this call for openness to other issues.

The Church’s social doctrine also emerged from this matrix. Its analysis of Christian revelation in the context of modern social, labor, economic and cultural issues would not have been possible without the contribution of the laity, men and women alike, who grappled with the great issues of their time. At their side were those men and women religious who embodied a Church forging in new directions. The epochal change we are now undergoing makes even more necessary a constant interaction between the faithful and the Church’s magisterium, between ordinary citizens and experts, between individuals and institutions. Here too, it needs to be acknowledged once more that reality is best viewed from the sidelines, and that the poor are possessed of unique insights indispensable to the Church and to humanity as a whole. (Paragraph 82)

Pope Leo’s teaching here is clear: we must work together to meet the problems of our day with the power of our faith. He calls for discernment that is synodal – integrating the diverse knowledge of Church members and experts – to address our most pressing problems. Additionally, he highlights the need to include those on the “sidelines’ who often have clearer perspectives and understandings of problems than do people who are less intimately familiar with daily realities.

As an aside, I cannot help but see this passage as a rebuke of certain mindsets in the Church that reject the legitimacy of Vatican II. It clearly emphasizes the importance of our understanding of faith growing and developing over time. Pope Leo seems to see himself as continuing the trajectory that the popes since Vatican II have followed.

There is no shortage of theories attempting to justify the present state of affairs or to explain that economic thinking requires us to wait for invisible market forces to resolve everything. Nevertheless, the dignity of every human person must be respected today, not tomorrow, and the extreme poverty of all those to whom this dignity is denied should constantly weigh upon our conscience. (Paragraph 92)

Earlier in Dilexi Te, Pope Leo discusses both individual charity and addressing systemic causes of poverty. He recognizes that both are essential components of caring for the poor and he is critical of those who suggest that one means of dealing with the issue negates the necessity of the other. He acknowledges that neither approach is perfect but, given the urgency of the situation, “it is better to do something than nothing.” In fact, as this passage makes clear, Pope Leo considers care for the poor to be an issue of highest priority within the Church.

Christian love breaks down every barrier, brings close those who were distant, unites strangers, and reconciles enemies. It spans chasms that are humanly impossible to bridge and it penetrates to the most hidden crevices of society. By its very nature, Christian love is prophetic: it works miracles and knows no limits. It makes what was apparently impossible happen. Love is above all a way of looking at life and a way of living it. A Church that sets no limits to love, that knows no enemies to fight but only men and women to love, is the Church that the world needs today. (Paragraph 20)

The echoes of Pope Francis are prominent in this passage, as we are reminded that it is through our love for the poor that miraculous change can happen. Like his predecessor, Pope Leo affirms that the work of the Church must be done relationally. In fact, it is through relationships built on Christian love that we find and it is through our acts of love that we can share the good news with the poor: Jesus says to them, “I have loved you.”

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Image: “Saint Peters Jan 07” (CC BY 2.0) by Mobilus In Mobili