During the reign of Emperor Valerian, Pope Sixtus II was martyred. The Emperor demanded that Lawrence, the Deacon who was the Pope’s principal assistant, surrender all the Church’s property to him. Within a few days, Lawrence gathered all the poor and orphans in Rome and presented them before the Emperor, declaring, “This is the Church’s treasure”. The enraged Emperor subsequently had him executed.
Pope Leo XIV’s first Apostolic Exhortation “Dilexi Te”, recounting the testimonies, including that of Lawrence, is a call to return to the spirit of the early Church which considered the poor as the Church’s wealth. The title (“Dilexi Te”), “I have loved you,” is taken from the Book of Revelation (3:9). The Lord spoke the words ‘I love you’ to a poor community that had no influence or wealth in the land they lived in, and was constantly attacked and condemned (1). Therefore, the special love for the suffering and the poor is God’s decision, not the Church’s. God also does not allow for discrimination against anyone else due to this ‘special love for the poor’. Instead, it merely reveals the great importance of the oppressed in God’s heart (16).
The sole criterion for the poor to be eligible for the Church’s ministry is poverty, not their region or lineage. The Pope states that the Church must constantly and zealously do everything possible to serve the poor, ranging from alms giving to implementing a moral world order, and that without this, there is no Church. The Pope considers this stance of the Church, which loves the poor, not only as helpful to the poor but also as a means and source for the continuous renewal of the Church (7), which is what makes this Apostolic Exhortation distinct in our time. It is the cry of the poor that liberates the Church from self-centeredness, and that is what keeps the Church faithful to God’s heart (8). The Church rediscovers the call to express its truest essence in the poor (76), because it is in them that Christ continues to suffer and rise again.
Francis of Assisi, who embraced poverty to imitate Christ—the poor, naked, and crucified one—did not establish a social service organization but an Evangelical Fraternity (64). Francis saw the living Christ in the poor. The saint used his own poverty to establish a relationship with the poor, relating to them as an equal or as one lower than them. The Pope presents Clare, who was inspired by Francis, and his contemporary Dominic, along with many other saints who loved the poor, as models for the approach the Church must adopt today. The Pope reminds us that they did all this not to increase the number of faithful, but as an expression of their own essence (67).
In the final lines of the Exhortation, the Pope writes: “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” (120). “The Church, like a mother, accompanies those who are walking. Where the world sees threats, she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges. She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community” (75).
The Pope also makes sure to mention that service to the poor includes opposition to the social structures that cause poverty. Every member of the Kingdom of God has a duty to raise their voice against social structures of injustice (97). In the final lines of the Exhortation, the Pope writes: “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” (120). “The Church, like a mother, accompanies those who are walking. Where the world sees threats, she sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges. She knows that her proclamation of the Gospel is credible only when it is translated into gestures of closeness and welcome. And she knows that in every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community” (75).
Pope Leo XIV’s acknowledges that “at times, Christian movements or groups have arisen which show little or no interest in the common good of society and, in particular, the protection and advancement of its most vulnerable and disadvantaged members” (112). Quoting Pope Francis, Pope Leo warns that if “any Church community” does not cooperate “in helping the poor to live with dignity and reaching out to everyone”, it will “risk breaking down, however much it may talk about social issues or criticize governments. It will easily drift into a spiritual worldliness camouflaged by religious practices, unproductive meetings and empty talk” (113). “We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor” (36).
Perhaps one of the biggest potential temptations for the Church in India or Kerala today is this: the temptation to love and protect only themselves, and to speak only for themselves during crises. The temptation to embrace only one’s own Rite or Community. Let us not ignore Pope Leo XIV’s call in “Dilexi Te” that the Church has no enemies to fight, but only people to love, and that no limits should be set on that love. Evangelization gains credibility when it is open to all and shows signs of closeness (75). The Church’s interventions should cause the Lord’s word, “I love you,” to be whispered in the ear of the oppressed.
