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Pope Leo XIV has issued his first major papal document, his Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te (“I Have Loved You”).
The document is a pastoral reflection on the Christian duty to love and serve the poor. Signed on 4 October, the feast of St Francis of Assisi, and released by the Vatican on 9 October, it represents both a continuation and completion of work begun by Pope Francis shortly before his death.
In his preface to the exhortation, Pope Leo reveals that his predecessor, the late Pope Francis, had been preparing the text when he died earlier this year. “I am happy to make this document my own,” he writes, explaining that he added reflections of his own while retaining the heart of Pope Francis’s message. The resulting text, he says, seeks to invite all Christians “to appreciate the close connection between Christ’s love and his summons to care for the poor.”
Dilexi Te calls the Church to renew its commitment to those who suffer material and spiritual deprivation. Pope Leo writes that the “preferential choice for the poor” is not an ideological position but a profound expression of divine compassion.
“God has a special place in his heart for those who are discriminated against and oppressed,” he affirms, calling on the Church to make a “decisive and radical choice in favour of the weakest.”
The document reiterates that this preference for the poor “never indicates exclusivity or discrimination towards other groups,” but rather expresses God’s mercy toward all humanity. The Pope presents care for the poor as central to holiness, describing it as “a revelation” rather than an act of simple human kindness. “Contact with those who are lowly and powerless,” he writes, “is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history.”
Dilexi Te moves beyond material poverty to encompass moral, social and cultural deprivation. It includes reflections on the Church’s long-standing ministry to the sick, the imprisoned and the marginalised, describing such work as a continuation of Christ’s own compassion.
It also touches on the importance of education, calling the instruction of poor children “a duty, not a favour”, and insists that migrants and refugees must be welcomed with open arms, as “in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community.”
The Pope also draws upon the example of the early Church, noting that from its earliest days Christians appointed deacons to serve the poor and that the first martyr, St Stephen, was among them. The document links such service to the very foundations of Christian life, suggesting that the Church’s identity is inseparable from her mission to the needy.
Pope Leo devotes several sections to the Church’s historic struggle against slavery, describing the self-sacrifice of religious men and women who offered their own freedom to redeem captives as “a quasi-liturgical act”. He also addresses the Church’s role in modern social and economic debates, warning against reliance on “invisible market forces” and insisting that human dignity “must be respected today, not tomorrow.”
The document concludes with a stirring vision of Christian love as the foundation of social renewal. “Christian love breaks down every barrier,” Pope Leo writes. “It reconciles enemies and spans chasms that are humanly impossible to bridge. A Church that sets no limits to love, that knows no enemies to fight but only men and women to love, is the Church that the world needs today.”
Dilexi Te was presented at the Holy See Press Office by Cardinal Michael Czerny SJ, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, Almoner of His Holiness and Prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity; Franciscan theologian Friar Frédéric-Marie Le Méhauté; and Sister Clémence of the Little Sisters of Jesus.
(Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images)
