Pope Leo XIV calls Christians back to what faith requires of them
His latest encyclical -- co-written with the late Pope Francis -- focuses on the poor
If anyone needed additional proof that in broad and important ways, Pope Leo XIV is very much in harmony with the late Pope Francis, whom he replaced a few months ago, all that is required is a reading of Leo’s recently issued Apostolic Exhortation, Dilexite.
[This photo of Pope Leon XIV signing this newly published document appeared in The National Catholic Reporter’s story quoted here today and carried this credit: (OSV News/Reuters/Vatican Media)]
For one thing, much of this new document retains the words Francis had written but didn’t complete before his death. For another, Leo mentions Francis in the second paragraph, saying that this document “reflects the inexhaustible mystery that Pope Francis reflected upon in the Encyclical Dilexit Nos on the human and divine love of the heart of Jesus Christ.”
As this National Catholic Reporter story about the new document said, in this exhortation Leo has “called out inequality and indifference to the plight of the poor in the first major teaching document of his pontificate.”
The document landed just when Americans were dealing with a federal government shutdown that was making life incalculably worse for people in poverty who depend, at least in part, on social programs for such necessities as food, housing and medical care.
In other words, a profoundly moral document called American elected officials and those who voted for them to remember their obligations to their neighbors who need help.
In the document, Pope Leo quoted a famous passage from the 25th chapter of the New Testament book of Matthew, where Jesus says that when his disciples feed the hungry or give drink to the thirsty, in effect, they are doing that act to Jesus himself. I prefer Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of that biblical account in The Message because it avoids calling hungry or thirsty or homeless people “the least of these” and describes them as “overlooked or ignored.”
In any case, Leo then writes, “This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, he continues to speak to us.”
It’s an important insight that too often churches overlook or underplay. If you want to meet the Lord, in effect, meet someone who needs your help because that someone is, like you, made in the image of God.
And let’s remember that the idea about humans being made in God’s image is found deeply embedded in the Hebrew Bible, both in one of the creation stories and in the story about Moses meeting God at the burning bush.
(This image came from this site and requires this credit: Sweet Publishing/FreeBibleimages.org.)
Leo writes this: “The passage of Sacred Scripture in which God reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush can serve as a constant starting-point for this effort. There he says: ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them. . .So come, I will send you’ ( Ex 3:7-8,10). God thus shows his concern for the needs of the poor.”
This empathy for the overlooked or ignored is, or at least should be, at the very heart of healthy religion — all religion, not just Christianity.
But Leo has done a service to all, not just Catholics, by reminding everyone of that reality.
A response to the needs of the overlooked and ignored, however, should go much beyond their pressing needs for food, clothing, shelter. It should require an understanding of the broken systems, including the economy, that leave people in poverty and ill health. For only when we understand what creates poverty and misery can we work to change the systems at fault.
This is why Pope Leo wrote this: “There is no shortage of theories attempting to justify the present state of affairs or to explain that economic thinking requires us to wait for invisible market forces to resolve everything. Nevertheless, the dignity of every human person must be respected today, not tomorrow, and the extreme poverty of all those to whom this dignity is denied should constantly weigh upon our consciences.”
In other words, waiting for “invisible market forces to resolve everything” is simply a way of avoiding our job to care for the poor — and, in the process, encounter the divine.
Still unpacking what was wrong with Hitler
A “first-ever analysis” of Adolph Hitler’s DNA, this Jewish Telegraph Agency story reports, shows that he “had a sexual disorder that made it more likely for him to have a micro-penis. . .” but that he “also did not have the Jewish ancestors that some have claimed he had.”
(This image of Hitler in his book, Mein Kampf, came from this site.)
The story adds this: “The analysis is being revealed in detail in ‘Hitler’s DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator,’ a new documentary premiering Saturday night in the United Kingdom. The documentary looks at the researchers who decided to tackle the genetic makeup of one of history’s greatest villains, as well as what they learned — and cannot learn — from his DNA.”
One reason to approve of this approach is that it takes seriously the idea that people who do evil deeds most likely act that way not because they are inescapably evil but because they are not healthy, not whole, not well.
No one who is whole and well would have done what Hitler did, which was to lead the team that purposefully murdered some six million Jews in the Holocaust. Perhaps if it’s possible to identify what was wrong with Hitler — or with any other political leader who commits or has committed evil deeds — a path toward fixing the problem might be identified and taken.
THE BOOK CORNER
People Are Like. . .: Stories for Young Readers and Readers Who Wish to Stay Young, by Michael Zedek, illustrated by Isabel Cristina Tejada Carrasco.
I almost never write about books for children, but I’m making an exception because, in this case, it’s a terrific, small book written by Kansas City Rabbi Michael Zedek and because the proceeds from the sale of this book will go to scholarships for students in need.
The 40 pages are filled with several stories about children, animals, toys, friendship and more. These stories are designed to get kids to think about how they can make their world a happier, more friendly place when things don’t go well or when they pay closer attention to their surroundings. And the illustrations are perfect.
As Zedek suggests, the book is for more than kids. It’s for all of us who wish to stay young at heart.