My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,
Today we open a new document from Pope Leo XIV, an Apostolic Exhortation titled Dilexi Te –
“I Have Loved You.” It begins with that tender phrase from the Book of Revelation, and it speaks of a truth we all must hear again: Christ has loved us first, and His love always reaches for the poor, the forgotten, the wounded along the road.
In many ways, there is deep beauty here. The Holy Father reminds us that the poor are not to be neglected, that almsgiving is still a work of mercy, that honest labor gives dignity to every human being. These words echo the long teaching of the Church.
St. Paul told the Thessalonians, “If any man will not work, neither let him eat” (II Thessalonians 3:10). And St. John Paul II taught that through work man becomes a co-creator with God. When we help a man find work, we do not only give him bread – we restore his sense of worth before the Creator.
This exhortation also praises almsgiving, and there it strikes the note of the Church Fathers. St. Basil the Great said, “The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked … .” Whenever the Church repeats that call, she speaks with the voice of Christ Himself who said, “Whatsoever you do to the least of these My brethren, you do to Me” (Matthew 25:40).
So yes – there is good here. To remind a weary world that mercy is not optional, that love must take flesh in generosity, is a blessing. We cannot love God and close our eyes to the one who suffers beside us.
But as we keep reading, we begin to notice something else. The light bends. The same words that once lifted hearts toward Heaven begin to turn horizontally, toward systems and structures and programs.
This, my friends, is where compassion becomes confusion – and where the mirage begins to shimmer on the horizon.
The Church has always known how to feed the poor – by first feeding souls. The saints built hospitals and orphanages because they were consumed with love of God. They began at the tabernacle, not the town hall. When mercy flows from adoration, it bears eternal fruit. When it begins in ideology, it dries up like a desert stream.
So as we walk through this exhortation – grateful for what is true, but alert to what is a mirage – we see how certain phrases, borrowed from old liberation movements, change the meaning of mercy. We must test every word by the unchanging Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because real mercy – divine mercy – is not a mirage in the sand. It is the living water that flows from the pierced Heart of our Savior.
When the exhortation turns to Scripture, Pope Leo recalls the scene at Bethany – the woman who anointed the feet of Our Lord with costly perfume. One of the disciples objected – Why this waste? “Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?” But Jesus replies, “Let her alone … The poor you have always with you; but Me you have not always” (Mark 14:7).
These words reveal the order of love. First comes adoration – then almsgiving. The worship of God is the fountain; the works of mercy are the stream. When the fountain is forgotten, the stream soon runs dry.
Mary of Bethany’s act was not social policy; it was pure worship. She recognized that the Son of God stood before her and she poured out everything she had. That is the posture of the Church. We begin at His feet, not in a committee room.
Yet in this document, that scene becomes something else. Love for the Lord is fused with love for the poor until the two seem identical, and then, quietly, the center shifts.
This exhortation speaks movingly of God hearing the cry of His people, recalling the burning bush and the Lord who said to Moses, “I have seen the affliction of My people, and am come down to deliver them” (Exodus 3:7-8). These words pierce the heart. But we must also remember how God delivered them – not through social reform, but through sacrifice and covenant, through blood on the doorposts and the worship of the living God.
The Church must never lose sight of what St. John Paul II called the priority of conversion and a renewed relationship with Jesus Christ over structure. We cannot cure the world by engineering it. We heal it by sanctifying it. For when mercy begins to rely on policy more than prayer, it ceases to be supernatural. It becomes something fragile, political, temporary – a mirage.
Let us remember this as we go forward: Christ never promised to end poverty. He promised to redeem it. He entered it Himself – born in a stable, working with His hands, dying with nothing but a tunic. He did not overturn Rome’s economy. He overturned sin. He came not to restructure the world, but to recreate the heart of man.
Let us turn now to the details of this Apostolic Exhortation. As this document unfolds, the words of Latin America begin to echo – the “preferential option for the poor,” the “structure of sin,” the “popular movements.” These phrases were born in a region where real suffering cries out to Heaven. Yet they carry with them a new vocabulary, one that turns salvation into social engineering. This is the area where the familiar rhythm of liberation theology was born. But we must remember: the Church has already spoken firmly about this movement.
In 1984, under Pope St. John Paul II, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – issued instruction regarding the “Theology of Liberation,” warning that it distorted the Gospel by reducing salvation to a merely political or economic liberation. He declared that such ideas “draw their inspiration from Marxist ideologies, which are incompatible with the Christian faith.” Later, a second instruction declared that liberation must begin with liberation from sin, not with the overthrow of social systems. The Church’s mission is not class struggle, but conversion; not revolution, but redemption. Whenever the Church adopts the slogans of the world, she risks trading the Cross for a clenched fist. We must never confuse the Kingdom of God with the kingdoms of men.
In fact, the whole section on “Popular Movements” in this exhortation is deeply troubling for the following reason: Pope Francis began holding “World Meetings of Popular Movements” during his pontificate – gatherings that included labor activists, environmental campaigners, migrant organizers, and secular revolutionaries. Many of these groups are openly Marxist in origin or orientation. The Vatican praised them for “making history” and “fighting against the empire of money,” language drawn straight from class struggle ideology. And remember, Pope Leo keeps making the point that he is continuing what his predecessor started.
The problem is not the desire to lift up the poor – that is a Gospel command. The problem is that these movements redefine justice not in supernatural terms (conversion, grace, sin, redemption), but in material and political terms (redistribution, activism, and social revolution). The Church’s mission is to convert hearts, not to energize political blocs. When “popular movements” are described as the hope of the world, it shifts faith away from Christ’s saving grace to man’s activism.
The Church cannot be the chaplain of revolution. Our mission is not to stir up class conflict, but to convert souls. Any theology that places its hope in economic or political systems betrays the Gospel. True solidarity does not come from activism, but from charity – from the grace that flows from the Heart of Christ. The poor do not need to be weaponized for ideology; they need to be sanctified by the Gospel.
Over and over in this exhortation the Holy Father speaks about Latin America, rooting this exhortation in the “theology of the poor,” which is the soil from which liberation theology grew. It praises the Medellin and Puebla conferences – which were precisely the turning points when many bishops in Latin America began fusing Catholic social teaching with Marxist analysis of class struggle. Therefore, Pope Leo is drawing a direct line from his own vision of the Church “of the poor” back through the post-conciliar Latin American experience – an experience heavily shaped by liberation theology’s categories of oppression and liberation. He highlights St. Oscar Romero as a symbol of that movement – which is complicated, because Romero was indeed martyred for defending his people, but his memory has often been co-opted by liberationist ideologies to justify political activism in place of evangelization. When the Church becomes a social movement, she ceases to be the Bride of Christ and becomes merely another voice in the chorus of the world.
The Holy Father insists that the Church must be “increasingly committed to resolving the structural causes of poverty” – that the Church herself, not just governments or citizens, must participate in redesigning social, economic, and even urban systems. He even calls welfare projects “merely provisional,” implying that charitable works and corporal mercy are insufficient unless they lead to systemic reform.
That is not the Church’s mission. The Church’s mandate is salvific, not political – to bring souls to Christ, to teach divine truth, to sanctify through the Sacraments, and to form consciences so that lay people, moved by grace, can bring Gospel values into the world.
The Church forms hearts; she doesn’t engineer economies. This structural focus comes from liberation theology and the Marxist notion of structural sin – the idea that injustice resides not in the human heart, but in the “structures” of society. Once that shift happens, the Gospel becomes a blueprint for activism instead of conversion.
But Christ did not send his apostles to design cities. He sent them to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins in His name.
Christ came to set the captives free, yes – but the captivity He named was the bondage of sin. In Dilexi Te, liberation begins to mean the overturning of economics, the rearranging of classes, the reforming of governments. It is the old dream of Babel spoken in the language of compassion.
The Holy Father, in his words, welcomes the United Nations’ effort to eradicate poverty – and yes, as Christians we long for every soul to be free from want and suffering. But let us be honest: the so-called “Millennium Goals” and “Sustainable Development Goals” of the United Nations are not rooted in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are rooted in a global ideology that rejects His Kingship and denies His moral law. The UN framework enshrines the “right” to abortion, contraception, population control, and gender ideology – all of which stand in direct opposition to the law of God and the teaching of His Church. We cannot walk hand-in-hand with those who call evil good and good evil. To do so would be to betray the very Cross we preach. As the Psalmist says, “I have hated the assembly of the malignant; and with the wicked I will not sit” (Psalm 25:5). The Church must serve the poor not by joining the world’s programs, but by conforming to Christ, who became poor for our sake that we might become rich in grace. We are not to seek alignment with worldly agencies that defy the natural law – we are to be their prophetic contradiction.
This exhortation also speaks about women, saying that societies must reflect more clearly that women possess “the same dignity and identical rights as men.” We can all agree that women and men share the same God-given dignity – both created in the image of God, both redeemed by the Blood of Christ, both called to holiness. But we cannot say their rights are identical. Our Creator made us complementary – equal in worth, distinct in mission. As Pope St. John Paul II wrote: “The personal resources of femininity are certainly no less than the resources of masculinity; they are merely different.” To pretend there is no difference between man and woman is to flatten the beauty of God’s design and to deny the sacred mystery of motherhood, fatherhood, and vocation. The dignity of woman is not found in imitating man, but in living the grace of her own vocation – a dignity reflected perfectly in the Virgin Mary, who changed the course of human history not through power, but through her humble and courageous “Fiat.” True justice for women will never come from erasing what makes them women, but from reverencing the divine order that God Himself established from the beginning.
Also notable is that this exhortation warns against the accumulation of wealth and urges the faithful to live simply and give generously to the poor – and that is indeed the Gospel call. Yet it never turns that same mirror toward the hierarchy itself. It speaks of the faithful, of monastic communities, of social reform – but it says nothing of bishops who live in palaces, travel in luxury, and surround themselves with comfort while the flock suffers. The Lord’s rebuke was never aimed only at the laity; it began with his own shepherds. “But woe to you that are rich: for you have your consolation” (Luke 6:24). If the Church is to preach detachment from worldly goods, then her shepherds must lead the way – not with words, but with example. How can the world believe our talk of poverty when prelates adorn themselves with extravagance and turn a blind eye to moral corruption within their own ranks? The silence about these scandals – about bishops who live double lives, some in grave sin against chastity – is deafening. True reform begins not with programs, but with repentance. Christ does not call His priests and bishops to comfort, but to the Cross.
Also the Holy Father talks about education and a pedagogical revolution in this exhortation, which is worrisome simply because when Francis used this term, he was echoing a theme that first appeared in the 2020 Vatican Initiative called the “Global Compact on Education” which called for a “new humanism” in education – a worldwide partnership between the Church, governments, and NGO’s (including the United Nations) to “rebuild the fabric of education” and form “a new humanity.” So when Pope Leo talks about a “pedagogical revolution,” since he proclaims he is endorsing and furthering everything Francis said, I am suspicious that this means a complete restructuring of how societies educate the next generation – and often in collaboration with secular and globalist systems. And these systems promote values fundamentally opposed to the Catholic faith – gender ideology, relativism, environmental pantheism, population control, and a rejection of objective moral truth.
When the Church aligns herself with such initiatives, she risks handing over her most sacred duty – the formation of souls – to secular powers. The Church has always been the guardian of truth in education. A so-called pedagogical revolution directed by global agencies does precisely that – it redefines truth and detaches moral formation from divine revelation. It replaces the Cross with the curriculum of the world. Therefore, before the Holy Father talks about education or especially pedagogical revolution, we would want to hear that he is parting from Francis’ path, which does not seem to be something he is willing to do.
When the Church mission turns physical without remaining spiritual, her works become hollow, or even harmful. Bread without blessing fills the stomach but not the soul. St. Vincent de Paul fed the hungry because he first adored the Eucharist; today many feed the hungry in the name of efficiency and call it holiness.
That is the heart of this mirage: mercy that looks radiant from afar but dries up when you reach for it. It is mercy measured in budgets, not in tears of repentance; mercy that fills warehouses but not confessions. And yet the true mercy of Christ still flows, quiet and unseen, through those who give without counting the cost.
The parable of the Good Samaritan appears near the end of the exhortation. It is one of the Lord’s most beautiful stories, yet here again its light is refracted. The Samaritan becomes a kind of community organizer, and the inn becomes society itself. But the true meaning of the parable is deeper and holier.
The wounded man on the roadside is fallen humanity. The Samaritan is Christ Himself, who bends down to lift us from the ditch of sin, pours on oil and wine – His precious blood and His grace – and brings us to the inn, which is His Church. Our own acts of mercy begin only when we have first been healed by His.
When the story is turned into a lesson about social programs, its power is lost. The Cross vanishes. Grace becomes activism. The innkeeper is no longer a symbol of Church but a model of humanitarian management. That is not the Gospel.
And then comes a quieter blow: the suggestion that those who defend orthodoxy, those who cling to tradition, must undergo a new “conversion” – as if fidelity were a fault, as if the Church’s problems were too much truth and too little flexibility.
My friends, if anything remains in the Church that is still worth giving to the poor, it is because generations of the faithful have refused to let go of the treasure they received. The lamps of doctrine kept burning in the dark; the tabernacles remained filled with the living Presence. Had the guardians of the faith surrendered to the attacks that have been heaped upon them, including attacks by the hierarchy itself, there would be nothing left to offer – no Gospel, no grace, no hope beyond this world.
The Church’s first mission has never changed: it is to save souls. Out of that mission flows everything else – schools, hospitals, shelters, food for the hungry. But if saving souls is forgotten, those works collapse into mere service projects. We heal bodies because Christ first heals souls; we feed the hungry because the Bread of Life still feeds us. Remove that order, and mercy becomes noise without meaning.
True renewal will not come from another program or initiative. It will come when hearts return to the Sacred Heart – when we adore again, repent again, and love again. That is the real revolution of mercy: the return of the soul to God.
Before we end, there is one more area that was spoken of in this exhortation where this same confusion of mercy and mission appears – that is migration and the question of borders. Yes, the Lord commands us to welcome the stranger. The Holy Family itself once fled into Egypt; every person seeking refuge bears that image. Charity demands open hearts and willing hands. Yet the Church, in her wisdom, has always joined mercy to prudence.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2241, affirms that political authorities may impose conditions on the right to immigrate for the sake of the “common good“ – “political authorities, for the sake of the common good, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions.” This ensures that immigration must occur within a framework of legal and juridical conditions that protect the nation’s well-being.
A people has a right – indeed, a duty – to protect its borders, to preserve order, and to safeguard its citizens. Mercy that forgets justice becomes sentiment; justice without mercy becomes cruelty. Both are needed if the common good is to endure.
Our love for those who flee danger must never become an excuse for lawlessness, nor may prudence harden into indifference. The Church must remain the mother who shelters and the teacher who warns. Christ calls us to charity, not to chaos. However, we can feed the stranger and still guard the flock; these are not enemies but the two walls that hold up the same house.
At the same time, we must also admit that we have not always carried out immigration policy with humanity or order. Too often, efforts to enforce the law have forgotten the dignity of the human person. Families have been torn apart, students who have built good lives here have been deported without mercy, and policies have sometimes punished the innocent as well as the guilty. A nation has the right to protect its borders, but that right must be exercised with compassion, prudence, and respect for the dignity of every soul created in the image of God.
It is interesting in this exhortation, however, that the Holy Father speaks of the Church’s tradition of “working for and with migrants,” and also speaks about “slavery and human trafficking,” evils that indeed cry out to Heaven for justice, yet he never links the two together. He seems unwilling to face the uncomfortable truth to which many within the Church have turned a blind eye, and that is the fact that those very crimes are happening on the U.S. borders, and the Church here has at times been complicit in the situation, and in some instances even advanced it.
For years, so-called Catholic agencies have profited from government contracts tied to illegal migration – operating not as true ministries of mercy, but as managers in a system of human suffering. Catholic Charities and diocesan programs have too often become complicit in an industry that fuels trafficking, exploitation, and moral chaos. This is not charity; it is commerce disguised as compassion. The Lord will not bless such deceit. To preach against slavery while ignoring the Church’s own cooperation in these injustices is hypocrisy of the highest order. True charity must flow from Truth – from the Gospel, not from government grants. The Church must free herself first if she wishes to free the enslaved.
And we cannot ignore the children who vanish in the shadows of this crisis. When borders collapse, predators appear. Thousands of little ones have crossed alone, unprotected, and many have been exploited or trafficked. Every child is a sacred trust from God; to abandon them to the cruelty of smugglers or to the machinery of profit is a grave sin. The Church must raise her voice for them – not to score political points, but because the Lord Himself said, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me …” (Matthew 19:14). Protecting them is not charity; it is justice and love.
Let me summarize by saying this – it is the lovers of truth – the men and women who kept the faith when it was unfashionable – who still keep the lamp burning. Were it not for them, for those who clung to the Creed and the Cross, we would have nothing left to give the poor but slogans. Orthodoxy is not an obstacle to mercy; it is the only soil where mercy can grow. What use is bread if we no longer have the Bread of Life? What use is freedom if we have forgotten the truth that makes us free?
And what use is a Church that forgets her mission? Christ’s final words were not “Welcome everyone as they are,” but “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Mathew 28:19).
The Great Commission has not been revoked. The Church once went forth to preach, to convert, to bring souls into the saving truth of Jesus Christ. Now, too often, we have replaced conversion with coexistence. We invite all to come, but we no longer call anyone to change. We say every path leads to God, forgetting that Christ alone is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
When the Church stops evangelizing, she stops loving. To silence the Gospel is not mercy; it is neglect. Our task has never been to blend the faith into every culture, but to bring every culture into the light of the faith. If we wish to heal the nations, we must first proclaim to them the name by which alone men are saved.
So, my dear friends, let us not be fooled by mirages. Let us drink again from the living water that flows from the Heart of Christ. Let us adore before we act, repent before we reform, pray before we protest. Then our mercy will be real, our justice radiant, and our charity divine.
May the Lord Jesus, who still bends to bind our wounds, pour His oil and wine upon this wounded world and lead it back to the inn of His mercy – the Holy Catholic Church.
And may Almighty God bless you – In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Bishop Joseph E. Strickland
Bishop Emeritus
