Vatican City – “The fact that some dismiss or ridicule charitable works, as if they were an obsession on the part of a few and not the burning heart of the Church’s mission, convinces me of the need to go back and re-read the Gospel, lest we risk replacing it with the wisdom of this world,” writes Pope Leo XIV in his first Apostolic Exhortation, “Dilexi Te” , which he signed on October 4, the memorial of St. Francis of Assisi, and which was published this Thursday .
“If we are to remain within the great current of the Church’s life that has its source in the Gospel and bears fruit in every time and place,” Pope Leo continued, “the poor cannot be neglected” . The Apostolic Exhortation, a 121-paragraph document, was begun by Pope Francis in the last months of his life. Pope Leo completed the work, just as Pope Francis had done before him with the Apostolic Exhortation “Lumen Fidei,” the drafting of which was begun by Pope Benedict XVI. It is a sign of the continuity that runs through the work of the Successors of Peter. All, with their human limitations, are called to confirm their brothers and sisters in the same faith, the faith of the Apostles. The Apostolic Exhortation aims to remind us that the option for the poor is not a voluntary choice, but the choice of Christ, who leads the Church to the same priority option throughout its entire journey through history. “For us Christians,” we read in paragraph 110, “the problem of the poor leads to the very heart of our faith. Saint John Paul II taught that the preferential option for the poor, namely the Church’s love for the poor, “is essential for her and a part of her constant tradition, and impels her to give attention to a world in which poverty is threatening to assume massive proportions in spite of technological and economic progress.” Indeed, for Christians, the poor are not a sociological category, but the very “flesh” of Christ. It is not enough to profess the doctrine of God’s Incarnation in general terms. To enter truly into this great mystery, we need to understand clearly that the Lord took on a flesh that hungers and thirsts, and experiences infirmity and imprisonment.”
Indeed, “one of the priorities of every movement of renewal within the Church has always been a preferential concern for the poor. In this sense, her work with the poor differs in its inspiration and method from the work carried out by any other humanitarian organization” .
The text, signed by Pope Leo, is full of quotations from the Church Fathers, confirming that the preferential option for the poor is not an abstract formula that has only recently entered the Church’s vocabulary. And the poor are not only those who lack the means to meet their material needs, but also the elderly, the sick, and migrants.
The Apostolic Exhortation echoes the words and formulas used by Pope Francis in the face of the structural injustice caused by the “dictatorship of an economy that kills.” “Thus, in a world where the poor are increasingly numerous, we paradoxically see the growth of a wealthy elite, living in a bubble of comfort and luxury, almost in another world compared to ordinary people” . Reference is made to theories that consider the absolute autonomy that must be guaranteed to the “invisible hands” of the markets and the central offices that control large-scale financial speculation as a positive value. The final paragraphs of the letter, however, do not deal with grand scenarios, but rather with “almsgiving,” “which nowadays is not looked upon favorably even among believers. Not only is it rarely practiced, but it is even at times disparaged” .
It is clear, as Pope Leo states in the Exhortation, “that almsgiving does not absolve the competent authorities of their responsibilities, eliminate the duty of government institutions to care for the poor, or detract from rightful efforts to ensure justice. Almsgiving at least offers us a chance to halt before the poor, to look into their eyes, to touch them and to share something of ourselves with them” . On almsgiving and the mystery of the preferential option for the poor, who are the first to be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven, Pope Leo quotes in paragraph 118 the conclusion of a sermon by Saint Gregory of Nazianzus with the following words: “If you think that I have something to say, servants of Christ, his brethren and co-heirs, let us visit Christ whenever we may; let us care for him, feed him, clothe him, welcome him, honor him, not only at a meal, as some have done, or by anointing him, as Mary did, or only by lending him a tomb, like Joseph of Arimathea, or by arranging for his burial, like Nicodemus, who loved Christ half-heartedly, or by giving him gold, frankincense and myrrh, like the Magi before all these others. The Lord of all asks for mercy, not sacrifice… Let us then show him mercy in the persons of the poor and those who today are lying on the ground, so that when we come to leave this world they may receive us into everlasting dwelling places.”
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