05/01/2026
Dear friends,
In our ongoing reflection on the Apostolic Exhortation on love for the poor by Pope Leo XIV, it is important to underscore that the main focus of this pastoral letter is to highlight the Church’s duty to care for the poor. The ministry to serve the poor is one of the three essential modus viviendi (ways of life) and modus operandi (ways of doing things) that the Church exercises with great conviction and renewed passion, from the time of the Apostles (Acts 2:42-47) up to the present day. This triple mission of the Church is chronicled as follows; the Church that worships (Liturgia), evangelizes (Kerygma), and serves (Diaconia). The Church receives life from the sanctuary (liturgy), brings people to the true worship of God through her teachings (evangelization), and meets people where they are by providing care and solace (service). Pope Francis, the admirable predecessor of Pope Leo XIV, in his avowed ecclesiology on the true identity of the Church, would always say that “we are a poor Church and a Church for the poor.” Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Pope Leo XIV upholds with intellectual dexterity and pastoral ingenuity that loving the poor is inseparable from loving. In our previous reflection, we identified who the poor people are. This knowledge was not a merely a sociological understanding of the poor and poverty, but rather, a theological reflection and pastoral insight from a son of St. Augustine, as Pope Leo XIV described himself on the first day of his pontificate on May 8, 2025.
Learning on how to be compassionate towards the poor, Pope Leo XIV directed us to the exemplary lives of some of the saints and people of goodwill who made the ministry to the poor a priority in their sacred mission of loving God and caring for His people. The works of St. Francis of Assisi and the Franciscans were acknowledged; the love of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was highlighted and valued highly as a model for all those who dedicate their lives to serve the little, the least, and the last of Jesus’ brethren (Matthew 25:40). Additionally, he invoked the spirit of Dorothy Day, who, although appreciated what the Church teaches (orthodoxy), insisted that the Church must practice what she teaches (orthopraxis). The unity between orthodoxy and orthopraxis remains the touchstone of the social and charitable works of many great Church men and women who translated their words into actions.
To buttress his sense of advocacy for the poor, the Holy Father frowned upon the ever-increasing inequalities in our society, even in wealthy countries, where the number of poor people is growing. He joined his voice with those of the Popes of the 20th and 21st centuries, especially Pope St. John Paul II in his seminal social encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concern), to denounce all “structures of sin” and inequalities that continue to keep the poor at the margins of society. “Structures of sin,” as defined by the Polish Pope, are those social situations, institutions, or laws rooted in accumulated personal sins that dehumanize, oppress, or impede human dignity. In this way, evil is said to be embedded in systems (economic, political, cultural) that perpetuate injustice and make it easier to commit sins against the common good. In Dilexi Te on paragraphs (91,94, 106, 108, and 114), Pope Leo XIV discussed some of these man-made structures, especially as they affect the poor and the marginalized. In paragraph 91 of his seminal Apostolic Exhortation, Pope Leo XIV courageously moved from magisterial orthodoxy to a deep-rooted pastoral ingenuity highlighting the role of charity in eradicating of all structural causes of poverty. He called on politicians to enter into sincere and effective dialogue with the people they serve and to feel their pain. This approach will address the problem at its root. We must continue to denounce the “dictatorship of an economy that kills and to recognize that while the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those fortunate few. This imbalance is unjust and it results in unhealthy ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. These “structures of sin” within society are frequently part of a dominant mindset that deems normal or reasonable what is merely selfishness and indifference. This, in turn, gives rise to social alienation.
As a doctor of the soul (Cura Animarum), the Holy Father presented the “structures of sin,” framing the causes of poverty as a sickness. This sickness of the mind and body politic weakens and frustrates the present-day world and, in fact, generates new crises in the lives of all people, especially those whose social context and political environment are polluted by greed. To heal this sickness, Pope Leo XIV applauded the insights provided by Pope Francis in his encyclical Fratelli Tutti (on Fraternity and Social Friendship), where Pope Francis used the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) to argue against the different “structures of sin” that are continuing to pervade our present society. One way to dismantle some of these simple structures of sin and indifference is to embody the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who stopped and cared for someone in dire need. According to Pope Leo XIV, we need to acknowledge that we are constantly tempted to ignore others, especially the weak. We have become accustomed to looking the other way, passing by, and ignoring situations until they affect us directly.
In his first Ash Wednesday homily on February 18, Pope Leo XIV, stressing the urgent need for repentance, acknowledged that while sin is always personal, it does take shape in the real and virtual contexts of life, in the attitudes we adopt towards each other that mutually impact us, and often within real economic, cultural, political and even religious “structures of sin.” These structures of sin oppose the living God by promoting idolatry, but the Scripture teaches us means to courageously embrace freedom and rediscover it through an exodus, a journey. To fight “structures of sin,” we should no longer be paralyzed, rigid and secure in our positions, but rather we ought to gather and assiduously work for the common good through fraternal dialogue, respect for human life, promotion of human dignity, and inauguration of the civilization of love. In a more concrete and practical way, Pope Leo XIV opposes the war in Iran and the immigration policies in America because they are spaces that can fuel structural sins, sabotage human dignity, and harm international relations among the nations of the world.
In the next reflection, we shall continue our thoughtful consideration of some basic elements of the Catholic Social Teaching in Pope Leo XIV’s Dilexi Te (I have loved you).
Rev. Benedict Nwachukwu-Udaku is the Director of Academic Formation at St. Junipero Serra House of Formation in the Diocese of San Bernardino.