Reading Francis

If you are a Catholic nerd deeply engaged Catholic, this is probably not your post. But if you saw some quotes from Pope Leo about poverty (that weren’t fake), and you were just curious enough to learn some rudimentary things about this document that the quotes came from, I am here for you. Let’s do this in a Q&A format.

What is this document?

Dilexi te is an apostolic exhortation from Pope Leo XIV to all Christians on love for the poor. An apostolic exhortation is a teaching document from a pope that carries a little less weight than an encyclical (which is the most common papal document for “big deal” topics), but it’s still a significant part of Catholic teaching. Popes often write these apostolic exhortations after a big leadership meeting of bishops (called a synod), but they can do them at other times, too. Pope Francis wrote one at the start of his papacy called Evangelii Gaudium that was basically the blueprint for his whole agenda. 

Is this Pope Leo’s blueprint for his whole agenda?

No. He’ll almost certainly put out a big encyclical next year on social issues that will fill that role. [deeply nerdy reasons to know that cut for time]

Is this Leo’s work or Francis’?

You may have heard (and Leo says this in the intro) that Pope Francis was working on this document when he passed away, and Leo has taken Francis’ outline, made it his own, and published it. Francis did the same thing with an encyclical that his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI was working on, so this is pretty common. Since these documents reflect the teaching of the Church, and not just one guy’s opinion, it follows that a pope might release something that his predecessor was working on.

Does that mean Leo isn’t invested in this idea?

The Catholic Church leans into the dynamic of continuity vs. change. Even when a pope says something new, they go out of their way to show how this “new” thing is actually deeply rooted in Scripture and tradition. More on that in a minute.

Critics of Francis have been hoping that Leo would be significantly different than his predecessor, but Leo has so far gone out of his way to make clear that there isn’t much daylight between the two popes. On this topic of the poor, Leo’s remarks on World Food Day about global hunger at the FAO headquarters (which, I was disappointed to learn, is a UN organization and not a toy store) are revelatory. Given by the pope just a few days after Dilexi te’s release, they hit on a lot of the same themes. Suffice to say, Pope Leo is invested in the message of Dilexi te.

What’s with the funky name?

Big Church documents like these pull the first two words of the Latin version (which is the “official” version) as their title. This one means “I have loved you” and is a quote from the book of Revelation. What’s interesting (to me) is that the last encyclical Pope Francis released was similarly named (Dilexit nos, “He loves us”). That document was on a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is a pretty deep Catholic spirituality cut, and not about social issues. Dilexi te might be so named to underscore how Catholic spirituality requires both worship and social action, love for God and love for neighbor.

OK, so what’s new in this one?

This may be my hot take, but I actually do think there’s something new in this, but it’s hidden like a pill hidden in peanut butter. The outline of the document is a wonderful walk through the history of Catholic social teaching – it highlights some of what the Bible says about caring for the poor, then shines the spotlight on early Church leaders, then calls out a number of religious orders (like the Franciscans) who specifically minister to the poor in different ways. It also points out that poverty is more than material, framing the Church’s historic work in education, health care, and service to migrants as examples of how it ministers to the poor. Then it traces the theme through the last 134 years of Catholic social teaching. So, again, all about continuity.

Here’s what I think is new, if not unique. Usually, Catholic doctrine starts by focusing on the essential dignity of every human being, and then groups care for the poor with other issues as an extension of that core principle of human dignity. This document puts poverty and care for the poor at the center. Whereas a human dignity discussion can quickly go in other directions (like abortion or euthanasia or war or the death penalty), Leo points to poverty as itself an essential element of understanding who God is, and especially who Jesus is. It’s a slightly different theological argument, and the result is that care for the poor becomes much, much harder to sideline or sidestep.

Anything else?

I should probably quit there, but let me reinforce one thing about that last point. It’s going to be easy for this document to hit secular ears as “just” a social critique; my impression is that critics are already saying that this is another example of where popes should “stay in their lane” by focusing on liturgy and leaving economics to others. Leo makes it clear that care for the poor is fundamentally a theological action, no less so than prayer or worship. I was really struck by this quote about St. Francis of Assisi and his order, which I did not put into Canva but will close with here:

Francis did not found a social service organization, but an evangelical fraternity. In the poor, he saw brothers and sisters, living images of the Lord. His mission was to be with them, and he did so through a solidarity that overcame distances and a compassionate love. Francis’ poverty was relational: it led him to become neighbor, equal to, or indeed lesser than others. His holiness sprang from the conviction that Christ can only be truly received by giving oneself generously to one’s brothers and sisters. 

Let me know if any of this sparks other questions!