Pope Leo XIV placed the poor at the core of the Christian message in his first major document, which was released on Thursday, urging people to defend and protect the most vulnerable as Jesus did while carrying out acts of charity like almsgiving.
Though not an overtly political statement, the document, known as an apostolic exhortation, said that care for the poor also meant “fighting against the structural causes of poverty and inequality.” Leo blamed “ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation” for deepening inequality.
“No Christian can regard the poor simply as a societal problem,” Leo wrote. They are “part of our ‘family’. They are ‘one of us.’”
He added that it was up to the church and its followers to care for the sick and suffering; to oppose slavery, including human trafficking, forced labor and sexual exploitation; and to help migrants and refugees.
The document, titled “I Have Loved You” and described as a letter “to all Christians on love for the poor,” was an early indication of at least one of the priorities of Leo’s papacy. The pope described it as a companion to Pope Francis’ last major teaching published a few months before his death. Leo noted that Francis had actually begun preparing this exhortation and that Leo had finished it. “I am happy to make this document my own — adding some reflections,” Leo wrote.
In his first months as pope, Leo has shown continuity with his predecessor’s teaching on other issues, too, including the environment, about which he delivered a major speech this month. Like Francis, he has also championed the rights of migrants, not only in offering the new teaching but also in urging U.S. bishops this week to strongly support immigrants as the Trump administration escalated its deportation campaign.
Though the document was made public on Thursday, Leo signed it on Oct. 4, the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, who was known for his care of the poor and whom Pope Francis honored with his papal name.
What does the document say?
With the Gospels as a starting point, church teachings have always put care for the poor at their core, the document said. More recently, even as some governments and international institutions have sought to eradicate poverty, there has been a sharp rise in inequality, it said.
Leo called for a “change of mentality” and a rejection of the “dictatorship of an economy that kills.”
“While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few,” Leo wrote.
Leo also called on unspecified forces for good to dismantle structural injustices, using technology to develop effective policies for change.
He also championed charity and almsgiving. “Charity is not optional but a requirement of true worship,” the document noted.
What does it tell us about Pope Leo?
The document suggested that Leo planned to make care for the poor a priority, much as Francis did. In a comment issued alongside the document, the Vatican’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, emphasized Leo’s history working with vulnerable peopl “As a religious and later a missionary bishop,” Leo “has shared so much of his life with the poor, allowing himself to be evangelized by them,” Mr. Tornielli wrote.
How does it reflect previous church teaching?
The document is a compendium of Christian beliefs on the poor, citing 150 years of the Roman Catholic Church’s social teaching. It serves as a reminder that care for the poor is at the root of Jesus’ message and that Christians are bound to that cause. It makes references to Catholic saints, the founders of religious orders focused on poverty and educators that have assisted the poor over the centuries.
And it cited the teaching of several popes, among them Leo XIII, who is perhaps best known for an encyclical called “Rerum Novarum,” or “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor,” that strongly defended the rights of working people to a living wage and set the tone for the church’s modern social doctrine. The current Leo said that he had taken his name as a reference to that pope.
There are also references to documents by more recent popes. They include John XXIII’s appeal to “wealthier countries not to remain indifferent to nations oppressed by hunger and extreme poverty”; John Paul II’s citing the church’s “preferential option for the poor”; and the approach of Francis, who “made care for the poor and solidarity with the poor one of the key themes of his pontificate,” Leo wrote.
What is an apostolic exhortation?
An apostolic exhortation is less authoritative than a papal encyclical, but it is nevertheless an important teaching pronouncement.
Elisabetta Povoledo is a Times reporter based in Rome, covering Italy, the Vatican and the culture of the region. She has been a journalist for 35 years.
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