With Dilexi te (“I Have Loved You”), published on 9 October 2025, Pope Leo XIV offers his first apostolic exhortation—a powerful call for Christians to recognise Christ’s presence in the poor and to respond with concrete love. Signed on the feast of St Francis of Assisi (4 October), the document reaffirms the inseparable bond between Christ’s love and the commitment to justice, echoing a long Ignatian and ecclesial tradition. Across the Jesuit world, the exhortation has already sparked reflection. In the EUM Province, Centro Astalli, the Jesuit Social Network, and Fondazione MAGIS ETS welcome the text as a profound, timely challenge to transform compassion into structural change.

Centro Astalli: The Gospel Is Social

Centro Astalli expresses gratitude for the Pope’s decision to make his first magisterial document a call to place the poor at the centre. They highlight two key messages: the poor are “the very flesh of Christ,” and the Gospel cannot be reduced to an individual, private spirituality—its proclamation must generate social consequences. The exhortation, they note, continues the Church’s invitation: “Do not forget the poor.”

Jesuit Social Network: From Aid to Unconditional Love

The Jesuit Social Network sees Dilexi te as a continuation of Pope Francis’s teaching on poverty, reaffirming that the poor must never be treated as cases or clients but as persons of infinite dignity. The document shifts the focus from assistance to reciprocal love, calling Christians to “allow themselves to be evangelised by the poor.”
The JSN also stresses its structural dimension: the exhortation denounces the “killing economy” and challenges social workers and institutions not only to respond to emergencies but to pursue cultural and political transformation, advocating against systems that produce injustice.
JSN president Guido Bava praises the text for recognising the complexity of contemporary poverty and urging institutions to refine their listening and adapt their tools to new forms of marginalisation.

MAGIS Foundation: Walking with the Poor, Working for Justice

For MAGIS, the exhortation strongly aligns with its mission. President Ambrogio Bongiovanni emphasises that the document comes at a critical moment, when global political choices and the growth of a war-driven economy deepen inequality and threaten our common home.
Dilexi te reaffirms the Church’s preferential option for the poor, presents poverty as a “family matter” for Christians, and insists that ignoring the cry of the poor is distancing oneself “from the very heart of God.”
Bongiovanni highlights the theological depth of the exhortation: love for Christ cannot be separated from love for the poor, and the call to justice arises not from mere social ethics but from Revelation itself.
He concludes that the Church—and MAGIS with it—must denounce structures of sin and help awaken consciences, working to transform unjust systems and to witness to a love that is concrete and courageous.