Last month, Pope Leo XIV published Dilexi te, a message to the Church. Written by Pope Francis and edited and endorsed by Pope Leo, it sets out the Catholic response to wealth and poverty. In it, Pope Leo recalls that Pope Francis had chosen to be named after Francis of Assisi after a “Cardinal friend of his embraced him, kissed him and told him: ‘Do not forget the poor!'” Pope Leo also recalls that later Pope Francis had told reporters, “How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!”’
These memories of commissioning and of desire lie at the heart of Dilexi te. It reflects on Christian faith by telling stories of people who are poor and of their relationships. It sees through their eyes God and the people who take their side, console or ignore them in their lives. The stories from Scripture, Christian history and of more recent engagement with public issues take up most of the document’s length.
At the heart of these stories is God’s activity for people who are poor and oppressed. God hears the cry of those who are poor and oppressed, comes to their help in Egypt and in exile and, in Jesus, joins us in our poverty. In his ministry, Jesus shows constant attention to people who are poor and excluded, teaches his followers to notice and care for the poor, dies stripped of dignity and belongings, and rises from the dead to offer the poor a home.
The stories of the early Christians also highlight the central importance of the poor in whom Christ was present. They believed that Christ was within the poor, so that attending to Christ and serving the poor went together. The Church communities cared for the poor and widows and appointed deacons to organise their support. Paul and other Christian teachers appealed for the poor. Roman outsiders commented on the extraordinary care of Christians for the outcast.
After Christianity was tolerated, the poor had a central place in monasteries and in later religious congregations. Their founders gathered friends to care for prisoners, prostitutes, refugees, orphans and uncared-for children, and people who were ill. Teaching and nursing institutions grew out of dedicated personal care for people who were poor.
Dilexi Te also describes the development of Catholic Social Teaching as a story that grows from engagement with those poor and impoverished in the Industrial Revolution to advocating their cause, and finally to listening to them as authorities.
Four things stand out about Dilexi te. First, selecting and telling stories always involves retelling them. In presenting Catholic Social Teaching, for example, Dilexi te, offers a brief summary of the Church teaching before the Second Vatican Council, emphasises the Council’s attention to the poor, and devotes most attention to the Latin American conferences which emphasised the central place of the poor in the Church. Archbishop Romero embodied this view. Once marginalised among Catholics, he and the poor lie at the heart of faith.
Second, the positions and people with whom Dilexi te takes issue are Catholics who disregard or minimise the central part of the poor in their faith. Allied to them are those infected by the wider culture whose social and political views emphasise the individual over the common good, see individual and national wealth as the measure of a good society, and regard the poor as defective or as expendable.
Third, Dilexi te reminds us that in Australia, inequality and the attitudes it feeds are common. It points to the enormity of the task of moving the centre of culture from individuals and their interests to their relationships within the community. This change is needed to notice and reach out to the poor. Dilexi te demonstrates how counter-cultural is the genuinely Christian response. It also makes it attractive.
Fourth, the most notable feature of Dilexi te is that Pope Francis has not only helped publish and put his name to such a radical document but has fully endorsed it.
Fr Andrew Hamilton SJ writes for Jesuit Communications and Jesuit Social Services.
