The Pope’s new teaching. Explained in plain English.
What is this new document?
About five months into his new role as pope, Leo XIV, issued his first official teaching document called Dilexi Te (Latin for “I Have Loved You”). The pope has deemed this an apostolic exhortation, meaning it is an letter to all Catholics and their leaders about the heart of their faith. The title of the document comes from the 3rd chapter of Revelations, where Christ is speaking to a particular Christian community in modern day Turkey/Türkiye. That community could not use arguments, logic, power, or money to bash other people—and Christ affirms his love for them.
The pope’s new letter is about poverty and people who are struggling, but it's not a call for a new charity drive. It’s a theological letter so it goes much deeper than just rules or duties and instead tries to teach us something new about who God really is. The full document on the Vatican’s website is linked HERE. Wherever you see [DT] in this article it references Dilexi Te and the paragraph number.
Why does this matter to me?
On every episode of the podcast, you’ll hear us say “Tell your stories.” That’s because you were made in the Image of God and for whatever reason your local parish may refuse to get to know you, there is something about Christ that they will not learn until they hear your story.
Even though the letter doesn't mention LGBT individuals, its main argument applies directly to them (and anyone who feels unwanted). The document teaches that the Church must learn from them.
This document addresses that head on.
The main message of this new document: If we want to understand Jesus beyond what a textbook might tell us, we have to be close (friendship) with the people in society who feel rejected, who thirst, who are imprisoned [DT 110]. In the Gospel of John, we reflect on what it means for God to become flesh (man). What did he experience that we cannot understand by ourselves? And what does it teach us about the very nature of Jesus.
This isn’t Marxist or Socialist or American Liberal and it does not romanticize being poor. It asks each one of us to confront what it is we cannot understand about God simply by ourselves. And then it tells us to go be friends with them. Wherever people are frail, sick, injured, poor, homeless…there is a mysterious bit of wisdom they possess that forces the healthy and rich to understand that no textbook or bank account can teach. That is the nature of Christian revelation.
Those who live on the streets have a perspective about survival that is very difficult to understand unless you get to know them. I think of my friend Sylvia who lived at 24th and K NW in Washington DC for many years. She checked on her fellow friends every day, and in the process taught me something deeper about human dignity. And she is a clear reminder that no one is too poor to be a protagonist (main character) for their own life and others too.
There has always been, and always will be poverty.
But the theological landscape (the current conditions we live and how we can understand God in the current times) are very different from even a few hundred years ago.
Let’s time travel and compare it to the modern age.
1600 Antwerp, Spanish Netherlands (Belgium)
Main Issue: Survival and a “good death”
· Belief in God: Most people were Catholic, and just about everyone believed in God. Catholic communities easily stick together.
· Response to fears: Church bells would ring during storms to invoke spiritual protection. People would give to the poor to gain their favor, as the Church taught that poverty is where the mercy of God shows himself.
· Community: The Catholic Church organized society. There were no pews in the parish because the church wasn’t just for Mass, it was also a gathering spot, school, and community center.
· Social bonds: People generally had to stick together in order to overcome famine, illness, etc.
Compare that to…
2025 Arlington, Virginia USA
Main issue: loneliness, isolation. Christian community no longer forms as a default social group, and we become more defensive and argumentative to “win people over.”
· Belief in God: 34% attend a church, 15% Catholic (according to US Religion Census 2020). Many denominations to choose from.
· Response to fears: Pharmacies, cleaning supplies, police officers in schools. [No foreign invasions/war locally]
· Community: No single organizer. Arlington county government, policing, resources. Schools, civic groups, and churches.
· Social bonds: Online friendships, less time together. Single family homes and apartment units with little interaction between neighbors.
This is not the first time there has been a major shift in the way the world organizes itself. Sometimes the way we speak and think about ourselves has to change if it wants to continue being believable. For example, for many centuries the Christians saw martyrdom as the best way to be a good Catholic. But by the time Saint Francis of Assisi came around (1300s) everyone was Catholic and few (if any) people were dying for their faith in Europe. How could we become the best if no one was willing to kill us?
Saint Francis realized that the theological landscape is different. People are moving away from their farms and into the cities, where disease and indifference made reality very cold and distant. In the document, Pope Leo talks about how he and others brought about renewal of the Christian faith through founding “orders, such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and Carmelites, represented an evangelical revolution, in which a simple and poor lifestyle became a prophetic sign for mission, reviving the experience of the first Christian community (cf. Acts 4:32). The witness of the mendicants challenged both clerical opulence and the coldness of urban society.” [DT 63]
“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.” [DT 64]
Is this phenomenon happening again?
Ask yourself, are we once again moving away from one another and becoming distant and cold in society? Is social media offering us a window to see the differences of others as the dignity of Christ teaching us, or is it something for us to judge hiding behind the safety of a phone or computer?
What are the lessons Dilexi Te offers?
There are three lessons for those who want to go deeper in Christ in this modern age.
· 1. We can't renew the Church with a book. Simply teaching rules (doctrine) and praying isn't enough; we need real-world Christian relationships with others, and that no longer happens naturally without a lot of effort. [DT 112]
· 2. We cannot leave it up to the market. We cannot simply put money in a basket and walk away -- we have to live the relationships that Christ entrusted to us. Present, in person, and sometimes uncomfortable. [DT 113]
· 3. We can't just minister to the powerful. Those who are poorer than us are actually teaching us about Jesus (the Word who became flesh). The less we spend time with them, as friends and equals, the less we can truly impact the world. [DT 114]
I’ll leave you with this quote from the document:
Saint Gregory of Nazianzus concluded one of his celebrated orations with these words: “If you think that I have something to say, servants of Christ, his brethren and co-heirs, let us visit Christ whenever we may; let us care for him, feed him, clothe him, welcome him, honor him, not only at a meal, as some have done, or by anointing him, as Mary did, or only by lending him a tomb, like Joseph of Arimathea, or by arranging for his burial, like Nicodemus, who loved Christ half-heartedly, or by giving him gold, frankincense and myrrh, like the Magi before all these others. The Lord of all asks for mercy, not sacrifice... Let us then show him mercy in the persons of the poor and those who today are lying on the ground, so that when we come to leave this world they may receive us into everlasting dwelling places.” [DT 118]
