Dilexi te

The Symposium on Saturday 30 May, ‘Now is the Time’, explored the teachings of Pope Leo in his Apostolic Exhortation ‘Dilexi Te' (Love for the Poor) was a thought provoking and inspirational day for those who attended.

Bishop Bosco MacDonald began the day setting the scene with St Augustine’s teachings on the heart and the role of love. He also touched on Pope Leo’s Encyclical Letter ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ that was published in May alongside talking about ‘Dilexi Te’. He also talked about seeing Christ in the poor and that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and how we see the poor.

Sir John Battle KC*SG then spoke about his encounters with people he has worked with and how the smallest gesture really counts. He mentioned several writings from various Popes that have touched on the poor and spoke about campaigning on issues as well as practical help for those who are poor.

Raymond Friel (CSAN) spoke about how we could put into action what we had looked at in the morning and gave several quotes from various writings of different Popes about the poor. He talked about Catholic Social Teaching and how this may look in our parishes and more locally. He also touched on different advocacy models and using them to bring about change.

From the Holy See Press Office, Press Conference presenting the Apostolic Exhortation “Dilexi te” by Pope Leo XIV on love for the poor.

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Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi te of the Holy Father Leo XIV on Love for the Poor (4 October 2025)

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 sake. At the same time, it re-proposes the Church’s social teaching, especially that of the past 150 years, as “a veritable treasury of significant teachings” concerning the poor.

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 Millennium; while Francis made care for the poor and solidarity with the poor one of the key themes of his pontificate.

The poor are at the heart of the Church.

Dilexi te 111

Begun by Francis, completed by Pope Leo

Like Francis, who completed the work of Benedict XVI on the encyclical Lumen Fidei, Pope Leo XIV took up the text of his immediate predecessor for his first major Magisterial document. Dilexi te builds on the teaching of Francis’ final encyclical – Dilexit nos, on the Sacred Heart of Jesus – highlighting the “close connection” between the love of God and love for the poor. “In the poor”, writes Pope Leo, God “continues to speak to us” (5).

The Holy Father likewise recalls the theme of the Church’s “preferential option… for the poor”, an expression that arose in the context of Latin America (16). Pope Leo explains that this “‘preference’ never indicates exclusivity or discrimination towards other groups” but instead emphasizes “God’s actions, which are moved by compassion toward the poverty and weakness of all humanity” (16).