Pope criticizes economies that marginalize poor

New document from Vatican traces history of Christian focus on helping those in need.

- By NICOLE WINFIELD

POPE Leo XIV meets members of a network of leading news agencies Thursday.

(Vatican Media)

Pope Leo XIV criticized how the wealthy live in a “bubble of comfort and luxury” while poor people suffer on the margins, confirming in his first teaching document that he is in perfect lockstep with his predecessor Pope Francis on matters of social and economic injustice.

The Vatican on Thursday released the document, titled “I have loved you,” which Francis had begun to write in his final months but never finished. Leo, who was elected in May, credited Francis with the text, cited him repeatedly, but said he had made the document his own and signed it.

The 100-page document traces the history of Christianity’s constant concern for poor people, from biblical citations and the teaching of church fathers to the preaching of recent popes about caring for migrants, prisoners and victims of human trafficking.

Leo credits especially women’s religious orders with carrying out God's mandate to care for the sick, feed the poor and welcome the stranger, and also praised lay-led popular movements advocating for land, housing and work for the society's most disadvantaged.

The conclusion Leo draws is that the Catholic Church's “preferential option for the poor” has existed from the start, is nonnegotiable and is the very essence of what it means to be Christian. He calls for a renewed commitment to fixing the structural causes of poverty, while providing unquestioning charity to those who need it.

“When the church kneels beside a leper, a malnourished child or an anonymous dying person, she fulfills her deepest vocation: to love the Lord where he is most disfigured,” Leo writes.