Pope Leo’s Ode to Latin American Theology: "Dilexi Te" TeachesThat True Worship Demands Love For The Poor (and... I would venture... calling out the Ultra-Rich's "love of money" -- as St. Paul pointed out -- as "the root of ALL evil")

 

The Week at Commonweal  In today’s newsletter, we’re featuring David Lantigua on Dilexi Te, Pope Leo’s first exhortation, and  Massimo Faggioli on a new American ‘political religion’ Anna Keating on author Daryl Russell Grisby’s social justice Catholicism A symposium on mental illness and the Church—serving the least of these Leo’s Ode to Latin American Theology Dilexi Te teaches that true worship demands love for the poor Pope Leo XIV signed his first exhortation on the love of the poor on October 4, the feast day of St. Francis. The timing was hardly a coincidence. A tribute to Pope Francis and his predecessor’s namesake, Dilexi te echoes St. Francis’s evangelical witness to fraternity with the poor and serves as a companion piece to Pope Francis’s last encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Dilexit nos). To authentically love the poor, Leo writes in Dilexi te, means to treat them not only as equals but as even greater than oneself. Leo also states that true worship demands love for the poor, which is one with love for the Lord. In his essay about the exhortation, David Lantigua points outs that Leo is following his predecessor’s commitment to linking devotional piety with social action, prayer with almsgiving, and the Gospel with liberation. In doing so, Leo reminds the more than two billion Christians around the world that Christian charity is liberating when it becomes incarnate and that the mission of the Church is to proclaim liberation. Both St. Francis and Pope Francis shine through Leo’s first exhortation. Also present is a Latin American theological rereading of Vatican II from a world of poverty, which, as Lantigua writes, “shows us, with fear and trembling, that Christ is always with us in the poor.” Read “Leo’s Ode to Latin American Theology” here.  *** Commonweal welcomes letters to the editor. Letters can respond to both print and online articles, and should include your name, city, and state. Please send your submissions to letters@commonwealmagazine.org. This Week’s Most Popular Pieces Paul Lakeland on John Gehring’s Reclaiming American Catholicism  Antonio Spadaro on religion in the age of algorithms Paul Baumann remembers Patrick Jordan Juan Carlos Cruz on Cardinal Cupich and Senator Durbin What We’re Reading Elsewhere Following the dismantling of the USAID, children are starving in Myanmar, where the United Nations estimates 40 percent of the population is in desperate need for humanitarian assistance: “Asked who is to blame for the loss of his son, Taher is direct: the United States.” Kicked, dragged, and detained-—more than 170 U.S. citizens have been held by immigration agents for days: “Cody Wofsy, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, put it even more starkly. ‘Any one of us could be next.’”  The process of gene editing is deceptively simple, but the implications are anything but: “Should we edit nature to fix our failures? And if we do, is it still natural?”  The past decade may rank as one of the worst in the history of American education, a stark reversal from what was once a hopeful story: “Declining standards and low expectations are destroying American education.” Like what you’re reading? Sign up for more newsletters from Commonweal! Podcast: A behind-the-scenes look at the latest from The Commonweal Podcast Commonweal Critics: A monthly newsletter featuring Commonweal’s arts and culture coverage The Stacks: Selections from the Commonweal archive, delivered once a month Issue Discussion Guide: Read and discuss each month’s must-read article To access more newsletters, follow the link to update your preferences. Commonweal depends on its supporters to bring you independent, lay-led journalism. Click here to make a donation today!