The core messages of ‘Dilexi Te’ by Pope Leo XIV belong to us Reformed Christians, too

Listen to the original podcast: The Kirkcast 2025 October 09

Read: Dilexi Te by Pope Leo XIV

I am just an armchair theologian, someone who has yet to learn the deeper intricacies of theological thought. But I write what I take to be clear from my lay position.

When I first read Pope Leo XIV’s new teaching Dilexi Te, I was skeptical. As a Presbyterian elder, I am not used to looking to Rome for direction. But this letter, officially called an apostolic exhortation, surprised me.

It speaks clearly about love for the poor and the marginalized, taking its title from Revelation where Jesus addresses those oppressed by Rome.

Pope Leo reminds the world that faith and love for the poor cannot be separated. He even cites Matthew 25, where Christ identifies himself with those who are hungry, thirsty, sick, and imprisoned.

Reading this as a Reformed Christian, I could not ignore how much of this message echoes our own call to live a faith that changes society, not just individual hearts.

Too often in the Protestant world, we have treated poverty and justice as optional issues—especially in safe, white-dominated suburban or rural congregations. We focus on spiritual life while telling ourselves that social problems belong to someone else—whether we realize it or not.

Dilexi Te refuses that comfort. It says clearly that to love God is to care for the poor, and to do that seriously means confronting the systems that keep people poor.

That means we cannot avoid politics.

It means the Church must sometimes raise its voice against unjust structures that crush the weak.

When Pope Leo says the Church cannot remain silent about civil matters, I hear a challenge to all of us who have hidden behind neutrality.

To address poverty is to speak about the economy, wages, housing, and immigration policy.

To address these things is to step into the political arena. And to do that as the Church is not a betrayal of faith. It is obedience to Christ’s command to love our neighbor.

In our Reformed tradition, we say that faith covers every part of life. John Calvin spoke about the duty of believers to bring righteousness into public life. But in practice, we have sometimes retreated into private religion.

Dilexi Te calls us back out.

It says that charity alone is not enough.

Giving food and clothes to the poor is good, but if the economic system remains built to exploit them, our faith remains shallow.

Real love means changing the conditions that make poverty normal.

The Pope speaks of “invisible market forces” that exclude the weak. We should be the first to name them, because Reformed theology has always insisted that sin is not only personal but also structural.

We confess that greed, racism, and exploitation are not just individual vices. They are systems. And if we remain silent, we are complicit in them.

In Chicago, this call feels immediate. We are surrounded by people who work two jobs and still cannot afford rent. Immigrants are hiding in fear as National Guard troops and ICE agents fill our streets. Families with children are sleeping in police stations.

Dilexi Te reminds me that these people are not statistics. They are Christ himself standing before us.

At Edgewater Presbyterian Church, we see that truth each time we open our doors to serve our neighbors.

We have learned that hospitality, accompaniment, and advocacy are all forms of worship. When we welcome the stranger, we welcome Jesus. When we help feed a family or offer them a place to rest, we are not doing charity. We are meeting Christ in the flesh.

But the message cannot stop at hospitality. It must move into action.

Our churches must join immigrant-led groups, legal clinics, and social service partners. We must speak to city and state leaders about housing, wages, and fairness in how resources are distributed. When we vote, when we write letters, when we testify at hearings, we are doing theological work.

This is the public witness of faith.

The Gospel is political not because it supports a party, but because it dares to challenge systems of cruelty. That challenge is uncomfortable, but it is holy work.

Every time we stand with the poor, we are standing where Christ stands. And when the Church withdraws from that work, it loses its salt and light.

I think often of Matthew 25, where Christ separates the sheep from the goats. He does not ask what we believed. He asks what we did for the hungry, the stranger, the prisoner. In this time of rising inequality and xenophobia, that question is haunting the Church again.

If Dilexi Te teaches anything, it is that the love of God must look like justice on the streets.

For us in the Reformed family, that means picking up our cross and walking into the city, not away from it.

It means letting our worship spill out of our sanctuaries and into public life.

It means treating civic engagement, protest, and advocacy not as distractions from faith, but as its true expression.

So I read this papal letter not as a Catholic command, but as a Christian challenge.

It tells us that to claim Christ is to take sides—with the poor, the hungry, and the outcast.

It tells us that we can no longer pretend that faith is private or safe.

As a Presbyterian in Chicago, I take that to heart. The words of Dilexi Te call us to stand up, to speak out, and to act.

The Church belongs in the struggle for justice, because that is where Christ still walks among us.