Jesus casting out the money changers from the Temple by Giotto, 14th century
By Geoff Bottoms
Just as the late Pope Francis completed the apostolic exhortation that was started by Pope Benedict XVI, Lumen Fidei, Pope Leo XIV has now completed the work that Pope Francis started before his death. Dilexi Te, an Apostolic Exhortation, is a teaching document from the pope which often aims to encourage a particular virtue or activity. Like many papal encyclical letters, apostolic exhortations have often developed themes of the Church’s social teaching.
Signed on the feast of St Francis of Assisi (4th October 2025) the document imparts the lesson that St Francis learnt personally and embodied, which is that a preferential love for the marginalised can renew both the Church and society.
Dilexi te means “I have loved you” and echoes the title of Pope Francis’ last encyclical letter Dilexit Nos (“he loved us”). The title is taken from the words of Jesus in the Book of Revelation Chapter 3 verse 9 and the exhortation is addressed “to all Christians on love for the poor.”
With the release of his first major magisterial document a few months into his papacy, we read Pope Leo’s developed thoughts on the Christian life for the first time, both in continuity with Pope Francis, and in his own particular style and from his own experience.
The exhortation is all about God’s love for the most vulnerable and marginalised people in our society, affirmed with many examples from the scriptures, the saints and religious orders, as well as in Catholic Social Teaching as it develops in dialogue and engagement with the contemporary world.
We are reminded that Christ himself became poor, which means we can see Christ in all those who are poor in our world today. We must therefore be particularly attentive to those who are most marginalised in our society and listen to the wisdom that only they can offer.
Putting the poor first
The preferential option for the poor is a key theme of Catholic Social Teaching, reminding us that those who are experiencing poverty are given special attention in the eyes of God. We are therefore called to put the needs of the marginalised and vulnerable first.
Yet Pope Leo points out that this preference for the poor:
….never indicates exclusivity or discrimination towards other groups which would be impossible for God… 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, he asks us, his Church, to make a decisive and radical choice in favour of the weakest.
Dilexi Te also describes the multifaceted nature of poverty in the modern world. This means that we must care for the sick, oppose modern-day slavery, defend women who experience exclusion and violence, make education available to all, work for equality, and accompany migrants.
“The experience of migration accompanies the history of the People of God” Pope Leo writes, citing the biblical examples of Abraham, Moses, the Holy Family in their flight to Egypt, and Christ himself in coming to live among us. Therefore welcoming migrants is a crucial part of the Church’s mission, as evidenced by institutions such as Caritas Internationalis.
Likening the Church to a mother, he goes on to say:
Where the world sees threats, she 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.
Pope Leo then celebrates the example of many holy men and women who have been true witnesses to Christian living in their treatment of those experiencing poverty or sickness, the imprisoned, uneducated and migrants, reminding us all that love and care for our neighbour, and those who are poor and marginalised, is a fundamental part of our faith. Which is why he also speaks about the importance of alms-giving as a way for us to express this faith, and make a concrete difference to our brothers and sisters who are experiencing poverty:
Our love and our deepest convictions need to be continually cultivated and we do so through our concrete actions…For this very reason, we Christians cannot abandon almsgiving.
In this respect, more than thirty saints are mentioned by name, including St Francis and St Clare, St Augustine, St Benedict, St Teresa of Calcutta and St Oscar Romero.
The class struggle for an economy of solidarity, not accumulation
Pope Leo also reflects on the lives of the diverse religious communities, many of them founded by saints, who through their common lives of voluntary poverty, have silently sowed the seeds of a new civilisation based on an economy of solidarity rather than accumulation. Referring to the Rule of the Benedictine Order he observes that:
The rule of sharing, working together and helping the vulnerable established an economy of solidarity, in contrast to the logic of accumulation.
He then goes on to warn against:
….a vision of life centred on the accumulation of wealth and social success at all costs, even at the expense of others.
Appealing for concrete solidarity in addressing the causes of poverty as well as its symptoms, Pope Leo emphasises the need for us to raise our voices to call for an end to unjust structures and systems which keep people poor. He argues:
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 consciences.
Developing this strong line, he goes on to speak of an era in which the “dictatorship of an economy that kills” continues to prevail; the wealth of the few continues to grow “exponentially,” while the gap between rich and poor increases; and “ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation” remain widespread.
As a result of all this Pope Leo says that:
….a new tyranny is being born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules….consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control.
For those of us on the Left we recognise this as the dead hand of capitalism, and imperialism as its highest form, as Lenin so succinctly described it. It is very encouraging to see that the spirit of the late Pope Francis lives on in the continuing development of Catholic Social Teaching under the leadership of Pope Leo, and CST promises to be a valuable ally in the class struggle towards a socialist future.
