Pope Leo XIV's apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te ("I Have Loved You") was released Oct. 9, 2025, setting the tone for his pontificate with a passionate call for solidarity with those on society's margins. He signed the document on Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi.
Too many people who hold political office today throw around words like "faith" and "Christianity" and "values," yet support dehumanizing practices that not only fail to love one's neighbor but also cause great harm.
In a theological reflection, Stan Chu Ilo reads Pope Leo XIV's first apostolic exhortation through St. Augustine's theology of the totus Christus — the whole Christ, head and body.
Prophetic in the truest sense, Dilexi Te is an uncompromising assessment of how wealth and faith in contemporary economic ideologies and markets have misshapen Christianity.
Pope Leo XIV's apostolic exhortation on love for the poor, Dilexi Te ("I Have Loved You"), released by the Vatican Oct. 9, "puts forth the pope's strategic plan for the rolling out of his pontificate," Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami said.
Pope Leo's new document, Dilexi Te, is an excellent summation of Catholic social teaching about the poor that reflects his commitment to the pastoral approach sketched by Francis.
Pope Leo XIV's first apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te ("I have loved you"), was promulgated Oct. 9, the feast day of St. John Henry Newman. Here are nine things to know about the document.
"I am convinced that the preferential choice for the poor is a source of extraordinary renewal both for the church and for society," the pope wrote in Dilexi Te.
