“A church which is poor and for the poor.” This vision, articulated by Pope Francis just days after his election in 2013, echoed the hopes expressed six decades earlier by Saint John XXIII on the eve of the Second Vatican Council. Now, near the beginning of his own pontificate, another pope, Leo XIV, offers a similar aspiration with the apostolic exhortation “Dilexi Te.”

Building on the legacy and work begun by his predecessor, Leo draws our attention to the fundamental link between the Gospel and love for the poor, which he describes as “the evangelical hallmark of a Church faithful to the heart of God” (No. 103). Like Francis, Leo affirms the need to address the structural dimensions of exclusion and confidently uses the language of social and structural sin to diagnose the crisis facing humanity today (No. 90).

But what does this mean for us? How should the church address structures of sin? How should the church respond to those on the margins? How, in other words, do we become a church of and for the poor?

Mining the Church’s ‘Great Tradition’

For Pope Leo XIV, one way to answer this “inescapable challenge” (No. 108) is to take up the inspiring examples of those who put the Gospel into practice. “I have chosen to recall the age-old history of the Church’s care for the poor and with the poor,” he explains in Chapter 5, “in order to make clear that it has always been a central part of her life. Indeed, caring for the poor is part of the Church’s great Tradition, a beacon as it were of evangelical light to illumine the hearts and guide the decisions of Christians in every age” (No. 103).

Chapter 3 offers an inspiring survey of this “great tradition.” Beginning with the fathers of the church, particularly St. John Chrysostom and (not surprisingly for Leo XIV) St. Augustine, “Dilexi Te” makes clear “that patristic theology was practical, aiming at a Church that was poor and for the poor, recalling that the Gospel is proclaimed correctly only when it impels us to touch the flesh of the least among us, and warning that doctrinal rigor without mercy is empty talk” (No. 48).

Reading this, one can feel a pastoral concern for those in the church who are drawn to tradition and the insights of the patristic period, but who may neglect or dismiss the church’s social commitment and efforts to address the structural dimensions of poverty.

A Tradition of Organized Charity

After considering the early church, Chapter 3 of “Dilexi Te” offers an overview of various organized efforts across seven broad categories: caring for the sick, monastic hospitality, working for the liberation of captives, mendicant evangelical poverty, educational ministries, accompanying migrants and serving the least among us. Each section illuminates exemplary saints who founded religious congregations to address specific needs, from the Mercedarians founded to liberate hostages in the 13th century to the Missionaries of Charity founded in the 20th century to serve “the most destitute, those discarded by society” (No. 77).

In all, the document uplifts the examples or writings of over 50 figures in the life of the church and names the work of 26 religious congregations. In this way, Pope Leo XIV offers a refreshing way to understand church history, framed by both the heroic work of individuals who cared for the poor and the collective efforts of groups and movements who sought to change society and renew the church.

While the text does not directly engage the theology of religious charisms, it suggests that love for the poor is a critical discernment marker to evaluate the authenticity of any ecclesial group or movement. “We must never forget,” Leo writes, “that religion, especially the Christian religion, cannot be limited to the private sphere, as if believers had no business making their voice heard with regard to problems affecting civil society” (No. 112).

Chapter 3 concludes with a section on popular movements, a category that describes groups of indigenous peoples, landless farmers, unskilled workers, those with disabilities and oppressed minorities. Quoting extensively from Pope Francis’ addresses to these groups, “Dilexi Te” praises their organizing work in “fighting against the structural causes of poverty and inequality … [and] confronting the destructive effects of the empire of money” (No. 81). This attention to grassroots organizing represents an important affirmation that the church’s option for the poor extends beyond acts of charity to solidarity with movements working for systemic transformation. 

Notable Omissions

While certainly a complete history of the church’s organized efforts for the poor would be impossible in an exhortation of this size, the chapter has several lacunae. First, with the exception of Caritas Internationalis, all the individuals and groups mentioned in Chapter 3 are ordained clergy or vowed religious. Of the nearly 50 saints and other historic figures mentioned in this overview of the “church of the poor,” only seven are women, and only one saint (St. Augustine) was a parent. This is all the more striking when we consider that women, like the widows served by the early church (No. 32), are disproportionately impacted by poverty and that it is women who staff a significant number of church charitable efforts.

Mention could have been made of the lay movements of specialized Catholic Action, like the Young Christian Workers, various labor unions, the experiences of new ecclesial movements like Focolare and Sant’Egidio, Christian base communities. The exhortation also lacks any mention of the witness of many holy lay people like Dorothy Day, Frédéric Ozanam, Satoko Kitahara and Julius Nyerere. These offer significant experiences in the church’s life and help clarify what it means to be a church with and for the poor.

Second, of the examples listed, very few are from outside of Europe. It is striking that of saints mentioned throughout the text, only two—St. Dulce of the Poor (Brazil) and St. Oscar Romero (El Salvador)—originate outside of Europe and the United States. While the document engages several meetings of Latin American bishops in Chapter 4, there is no direct engagement with similar work coming from sub-Saharan Africa or Asia, where the majority of the world’s poor live and where many church movements and organizations are working to address poverty. This reads like a slight departure from the writings of Pope Francis, who included examples and footnotes from a wide geographic variety of sources.

Structures of Grace

Despite these missing pieces, the document offers an important contribution to the social doctrine of the church in this Jubilee Year. It speaks not only to the importance of engaging the poor at a personal and individual level but also to the necessity of organizing and creating social movements, including religious congregations and popular movements, that can work in a range of ways to combat the structures of sin that wound our world.

In this way, the organized efforts highlighted by Chapter 3 might even be understood as structures of grace—institutions and movements that offer spaces to inspire and support individuals, work to address the structural causes of poverty and contribute to the renewal of the church as it seeks to become truly a church of and for the poor. This theological insight, while only implicit in Leo XIV’s text, points toward a deeper truth: Just as sin can become embedded in social structures, so too can grace become incarnate in organized communities dedicated to justice and mercy. These structures of grace serve as concrete signs of hope and pathways for transformation in a world scarred by inequality and exclusion.