Pope Leo XIV message of Love And Faith

Pope Leo: Faith cannot be separated from love for the poor
Taking up Francis’ desire “that all Christians come to appreciate the close connection between Christ’s love and his summons to care for the poor”, Pope Leo XIV issues his first Apostolic Exhortation, “Dilexi te”, as a call to Christ’s disciples “to recognize him in the poor and the suffering”.
By Salvatore Cernuzio

Pope Leo XIV’s first Apostolic Exhortation sees the love of Christ incarnated in love for the poor, in caring for the sick, opposing slavery, defending women who experience exclusion and violence, making education available to all, accompanying migrants, charitable giving, working for equality and more.

Dilexi te (“I have loved you”, from Rev 3:9) unfolds in 121 numbered paragraphs spread throughout five chapters, and flows directly from the Gospel of the Son of God, Who in the very act of entering into our world through the Incarnation became poor for our sakes. At the same time, it reproposes the Church’s social teaching, especially that of the past 150 years, as “a veritable treasury of significant teachings” concerning the poor.
Pope Leo XIV's first Apostolic Exhortation, "Dilexi te"
Following in the footsteps of his predecessors
With this document, signed on 4 October, the feast of Saint Francis of Assis, Pope Leo situates himself firmly on the path laid out by his predecessors, including Saint John XXIII, with his appeal, in Mater et Magistra, to wealthier countries not to remain indifferent to nations oppressed by hunger and extreme poverty (83).

Saint Paul VI added his own voice with Populorum progressio and his appearance at the United Nations as an “advocate of the poor”; as did Saint John Paul II, who consolidated the doctrinal foundations of the Church’s “preferential option for the poor”.

More recently, Benedict XVI, in Caritas in veritate, offered a more markedly political take on the crises of the Third Millenium; while Francis made care for the poor and solidarity with the poor one of the key themes of his pontificate.