Dilexi te: Pope Leo XIV’s First Word to the Church

What the new Pope’s exhortation on love and poverty reveals about his theology, his vision — and the future of Catholic social teaching.

A Catholic Unscripted Analysis

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Pope Leo XIV’s Dilexi te (“I have loved you”) was signed on 4 October 2025, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi — an apt date for a document dedicated to love made concrete in poverty. The text runs to 123 numbered paragraphs and roughly 16,000 words, placing it among the shorter but more programmatic papal exhortations. Its subtitle identifies it as an Apostolic Exhortation on Love for the Poor and the Renewal of the Church’s Heart.

The document’s Latin title deliberately echoes Pope Francis’s final encyclical, Dilexit nos (“He loved us,” 2024), which was devoted to the love of the Heart of Christ. Pope Leo acknowledges this continuity explicitly in §3:

“Pope Francis was preparing in the last months of his life an Apostolic Exhortation on the Church’s care for the poor, to which he gave the title Dilexi te, as if Christ speaks those words to each of them, saying: ‘You have but little power, yet I have loved you’ (Rev 3:9). I am happy to make this document my own — adding some reflections — and to issue it at the beginning of my own pontificate.”

Thus, Dilexi te is both a completion of a work begun by Francis and the charter text of Leo’s papacy.

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Why an Apostolic Exhortation, Not an Encyclical?

In Catholic hierarchy of documents, an Apostolic Exhortation is pastoral and motivational rather than doctrinally defining. It is a papal invitation to action and reflection rather than a formal teaching statement.

By choosing this genre, Pope Leo signals that his aim is not to promulgate new doctrine, but to rekindle the Church’s witness. It is addressed more to the heart than to the intellect: an appeal for conversion, simplicity, and service.

That makes Dilexi te a bridge document, standing between Pope Francis’s often sociological approach and what many hope will be Leo’s more theological and spiritual orientation.

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The Theological Core: Divine Love and Human Poverty

The title phrase, “I have loved you,” drawn from the Book of Revelation (3:9), establishes the central axis of the document: God’s personal and enduring love for the poor and spiritually needy.

Pope Leo situates this love not primarily in economic terms, but in the poverty of the human condition, mortality, weakness, and dependence upon grace. In §16 he writes that Christ “shared in our radical poverty, which is death,” and that God’s compassion toward human frailty is the foundation of His Kingdom. Poverty here is as much anthropological as material: every person is poor before God.

This, at least in its theological intention, is a strength of the document. It recalls the Beatitudes and the patristic vision of the pauper spiritu; the poor in spirit, who are rich in grace.

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The Pope’s Depiction of Jesus’ Poverty

In §§18–19, Leo insists that “poverty marked every aspect of Jesus’ life.” Frankly this is debatable. Historically, the Holy Family lived not in destitution but in modest working-class security. Joseph’s trade as a tekton (builder or craftsman) provided stability; the family’s annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem (Luke 2:41–51) indicate some disposable means.

Scholars such as Bruce Longenecker have argued that such families occupied the lower-middle tier of ancient Galilean society, hardly destitute. Thus, Leo’s portrayal of a lifelong destitution risks a certain eisegesis, reading a desired image of radical poverty into the historical record.

That said, the spiritual poverty of Christ, His kenosis (self-emptying), is entirely orthodox. The Incarnation itself is God’s voluntary descent into weakness and suffering for humanity’s redemption. Leo’s emphasis on this kenotic love (cf. Phil 2:7–8; 2 Cor 8:9) is deeply traditional and theologically sound.

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Poverty as Spiritual Reality, Not Social Class

The document’s best sections articulate that poverty is not simply lack of resources but a spiritual condition requiring grace. In this, Dilexi te distinguishes itself from certain strands of liberation theology by grounding its social vision in Christology rather than class analysis.

However, Leo also warns against “the illusion of happiness derived from a comfortable life” (§11), a line that may sound accusatory to ordinary Catholics striving responsibly to provide for their families.

When he writes in §20 that “the renunciation of goods, riches and worldly securities becomes a visible sign of entrusting oneself to God,” the phrasing lacks nuance. Catholic teaching, from Rerum Novarum to Laborem Exercens, is clear that parents have a grave duty to provide for their families (1 Tim 5:8; CCC 2221–2222). True evangelical poverty is detachment, not irresponsibility.

In this respect, the exhortation would have benefited from more pastoral realism.

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The Refrain of “Who Excludes the Poor?”

Several passages (§§21–23, 27) accuse society, and, by implication, the Church, of disregarding or excluding the poor. The moral sentiment is sound, but the rhetoric occasionally overreaches.

When the Pope asserts that “many people think they can safely disregard the poor,” he provides no sociological evidence. Who are these people? Billionaires, perhaps, but are they the audience for an apostolic exhortation? For most readers, such statements may feel vague and moralising, rather than prophetic.

Moreover, in quoting Luke 14:12–14 (“invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind”), Leo fails to provide the interpretive depth such a text demands. Jesus’ teaching on hospitality is a moral principle of selfless generosity, not a literal ban on social meals with friends and family. The lack of explanation risks misunderstanding. I can’t help but feel this is the theme throughout the document and it is redolent of Francis, perhaps we are seeing his influence here?

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The “Poor Church for the Poor” and the Shadow of Francis