Leo XIV Continues Francis’s Distorted Vision for the Church in First Exhortation 'Dilexi Te'
The document employs rhetoric influenced by Marxist social theory and presents “care for the poor” as the Church’s primary mission. Divided into five chapters and 121 numbered paragraphs, it is notably shorter than most recent papal texts.
Leo XIV writes that the text was started by Francis: "I am happy to make this document my own — adding some reflections — and to issue it at the beginning of my own pontificate, since I share the desire of my beloved predecessor that all Christians come to appreciate the close connection between Christ’s love and his summons to care for the poor."
Questionable Quotes
Leo XIV: "Jesus identified himself with the lowest ranks of society." (§2)
Christ:, descendant of King David: "I and the Father are one."
Leo XIV: "It is to be welcomed that the United Nations has made the eradication of poverty one of its Millennium Goals." (§10)
Christ: "The poor you will always have with you."
Leo XIV: "It is easy to understand why we can also speak theologically of a preferential option on the part of God for the poor, an expression that arose in the context of the Latin American continent and in particular in the Puebla Assembly." (§16)
Liberation Theology aimed at distorting the Christian faith from the perspective of "the poor".
Leo XIV: "In every rejected migrant, it is Christ himself who knocks at the door of the community." ($ 75)
Christ to a Syrophoenician woman: “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs”.
Leo XIV: "The Church presents herself as she is and as she wishes to be: the Church of all and in particular the Church of the poor. (§84)
Christ to Jews in the Temple: "You do not believe because you are not among my sheep."
St Paul: "Not all have faith."
Leo XIV: "This is the hour of the poor… not simply one theme among others, but in some sense the only theme of the [Second Vatican] Council as a whole." (§84)
Vatican II aimed to renew the Church' inner life through liturgy and its outward relations through ecumenism and interreligious dialogue. None of the 16 documents was primarily about "the poor".
Leo XIV: "We must continue, then, to denounce the dictatorship of an economy that kills." (§92)
Rhetorical exaggeration from Francis that blurs the line between moral critique and emotional appeal.
Leo XIV: "We must let ourselves be evangelized by the poor and acknowledge the mysterious wisdom which God wishes to share with us through them." ($102)
Christ made the apostels - not the poor - his missionaries: "Go and make disciples, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you".
Leo XIV: "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)
Christ: "Because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
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