Pope Leo’s Vision of the Church

Last fall, Pope Leo published his first major teaching document, the Apostolic Exhortation, Dilexi Te. This document has primarily been presented as a moral exhortation for Christians to better serve the poor. While this isn’t untrue, I think Pope Leo’s inaugural teaching letter is much more. In Dilexi Te, Pope Leo presents us his programatic vision of the Church.

For the bulk of Dilexi Te, Pope Leo surveys Scripture, the Church Fathers, centuries of Saintly witnesses, the Church’s body of social teaching, Vatican II, and post-councilar papal documents to demonstrate how the character of God and the nature of the Church is expressed in the doctrine of the preferential option for the poor.

In this theology, God isn’t a judge demanding that the debt of humanity’s sin be paid, such that Christ has to appease or protect us from an angry father. Not at all. Rather, “God is merciful love” (DT 16), a Father “who is always concerned for the needs of his children, especially those in greatest need” (DT 8). God is a liberator, who looks at humanity with “a merciful gaze and a heart full of love” and desires to “free us from slavery, fear, sin and the power of death” (DT 16). Pope Leo says: ...

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