Pope Leo’s first apostolic exhortation is a bold affirmation that love for the poor has always been at the heart of the life of the Church

“I am happy to make this document my own,” writes Pope Leo in the introduction to Dilexi te. His first apostolic exhortation is also Francis’ last; as Leo explains, his predecessor was preparing the text under that title in the months before he died. It was to be the sequel to Dilexit nos, his rather unexpected and entirely characteristic encyclical on the Sacred Heart.

From a potted salvation history, running through the Old Testament and the New, the Church Fathers, the monastic, mendicant and every other type of order, up to Mother Teresa and Irmã Dulce and the work of Caritas Internationalis today, Dilexi te asserts that “caring for the poor is part of the Church’s great Tradition”.

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