Pope Leo XIV’s Teaching on the Six Faces of Christ Jesus (Dilexi te)

For the second piece in this series on the theology of Pope Leo XIV, I was asked by a reader explain what it means in practice to live out Pope Leo XIV’s call that we encounter Jesus fundamentally through the lowly and powerless. “This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, he continues to speak to us” (Dilexi te, 5). The reader also asked in what ways Leo came in contact with the lowly and powerless before and after his election as Pope.

The origin of Dilexi te (I Loved You) lies with Pope Francis, who drafted it in his final months before his death on April 21, 2025, as a follow-up to his Dilexit Nos (He Loved Us) on Christ’s love, titling it after Revelation 3:9 to highlight divine solidarity with the powerless. Pope Leo XIV (elected May 8, 2025) adopted the draft “as his own—adding some reflections”—and promulgated it on 4 October 2025. Such completions by successors are rare but precedented (e.g., Paul VI with John XXIII’s drafts; Benedict XVI incorporating Saint John Paul II’s notes into Spe Salvi), often involving theological refinement for continuity and personalization. We know Francis authored up to at least paragraph 4 (on the anointing at Bethany, Mt 26) from the document’s self-description in paragraphs 1–3, with Leo signaling his additions thereafter without precise breakpoints—thus qualifying the exhortation as a shared legacy while fully Leo’s magisterium.

However, before turning to Leo’s own encounters with the lowly, we must clarify who these “lowly and powerless” are, since we often assume the Church means only the materially poor. Here, Leo broadens the scope to encompass multifaceted poverty: “the poverty of those who lack material means of subsistence, the poverty of those who are socially marginalized and lack the means to give voice to their dignity and abilities, moral and spiritual poverty, cultural poverty, the poverty of those who find themselves in a condition of personal or social weakness or fragility, the poverty of those who have no rights, no space, no freedom” (Dilexi te, 9). This echoes Vatican II’s call to see Christ in “those who are poor or in any way afflicted” (Gaudium et Spes, 1), extending beyond economics to the discarded, migrants, elderly, disabled, and spiritually desolate—anyone stripped of agency, mirroring Christ’s kenosis (Phil 2:7). Leo’s “eight faces of Christ Jesus” (user memory) further personalizes this: the hungry, stranger, naked, sick, imprisoned (Mt 25), plus the unborn, refugee, and lonely, urging us to recognize the Lord in every “wounded face.”

From this description of the multifaced poverty, we can extract six specific faces of poverty:

1. Material poverty — lacking the basic means of subsistence.
2. Social poverty — being marginalized, excluded, or unable to make one’s dignity and abilities heard.
3. Moral and spiritual poverty — lacking inner grounding, meaning, or moral direction.
4. Cultural poverty — lacking access to education, formation, or the cultural goods that allow a person to flourish.
5. Personal or social fragility — living in conditions of weakness, instability, or vulnerability.
6. Poverty of rights and freedom — having no rights, no space, or no freedom to act or participate.

Drawing, again, the question about paragraph (Dilexi te, 5):

Love for the Lord, then, is one with love for the poor. The same Jesus who tells us, “The poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26:11), also promises the disciples: “I am with you always” (Mt 28:20). We likewise think of his saying: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, he continues to speak to us.

It is these six types of poverty that Pope Leo XIV says, “In a Church that recognizes in the poor the face of Christ and in material goods the instrument of charity, Saint Augustine’s thought remains a sure light” (Dilexi te, 47). “For Augustine, the poor are not just people to be helped, but the sacramental presence of the Lord” (Dilexi te, 45).

Where Do We Encounter the Six Faces of Christ in History

Leo’s phrase, “…is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history,” combines succinctness with profundity. Indeed, how is it that we encounter the God of yesterday and today outside of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist? We answer that in affirming the real memory of the Church, which preserves our historic encounter in what we call ‘salvation history,’ showing that our Lord has always chosen to be found among the six faces of poverty.

• Material poverty appears in the earliest Christian communities, where the apostles recognized the poor as privileged bearers of Christ’s presence (Acts 2–4). The Fathers—from Augustine to Chrysostom—insisted that the hungry and destitute were not merely recipients of aid but “altars of Christ,” a theme Leo explicitly retrieves in Dilexi te 45–47.
• Social poverty, the condition of those silenced or excluded, is seen in the Church’s defense of widows, orphans, and foreigners in patristic preaching. The medieval protection of pilgrims and the Church’s advocacy for the enslaved and oppressed show how Christ’s voice has continually spoken through those denied dignity.
• Moral and spiritual poverty has marked every age: the disoriented, the despairing, the morally wounded. Saints like Francis of Assisi, Vincent de Paul, and Mother Teresa recognized that Christ hides himself in those who have lost interior direction, revealing his mercy precisely where human brokenness is deepest.
• Cultural poverty emerges in moments when people are deprived of education, formation, or the means to participate in the life of the mind. The monastic preservation of learning, the founding of universities, and missionary efforts to teach reading and catechesis all arose from the conviction that Christ is encountered in those denied access to truth and beauty.
• Personal or social fragility appears in the sick, the elderly, the disabled, and those living through war or displacement. The Church’s long history of hospitals, hospices, and care for the dying reflects the belief that Christ’s wounded body is present in every form of human vulnerability.
• Poverty of rights and freedom has been a recurring site of encounter: from Christians imprisoned under Roman persecution, to enslaved peoples, to modern victims of trafficking and political repression. The Church has consistently recognized that Christ stands with those deprived of agency, echoing his own kenosis and powerlessness in the Passion.

Truly, across human history, these six faces form a single Christological thread: the Lord of glory chooses to be found where human dignity is most obscured. In this way, Leo XIV’s theology simply makes explicit what the Church has always lived.

Where Do We Encounter the Six Faces of Christ in Our Daily Lives

Now, moving on to what I thought was the most beautiful part about the question was moving from the historical face to the present face; asking how do we minister to those six faces today? Yes, the same Christ who revealed himself in the poor of the past continues to speak through the poor of today. These six forms of poverty are present in every parish, every city, every digital space, and every human relationship.

• Material poverty confronts us in the homeless person on the street, the family struggling with food insecurity, or the elderly neighbor choosing between medicine and heat. Christ’s presence is not metaphorical here; Leo insists it is sacramental.
• Social poverty appears in those who are unseen: the migrant who cannot navigate the system, the teenager who feels invisible, the coworker whose gifts go unrecognized. Encountering them is an encounter with the Christ who was himself “despised and rejected” (Is 53:3).
• Moral and spiritual poverty is present in the friend who has lost hope, the person drowning in addiction, and the parishioner who feels far from God. Leo’s theology reframes these not as failures but as privileged places where Christ waits to be met.
• Cultural poverty surrounds us in those who lack access to education, formation, or the cultural goods that allow a person to flourish: the child who cannot read, the adult who never received catechesis, the refugee learning a new language. To accompany them is to accompany Christ.
• Personal or social fragility is visible in the sick, the anxious, the isolated elderly, the overwhelmed parent, and the person navigating disability. These are not interruptions to the spiritual life; they are the spiritual life, because Christ has chosen to dwell in human weakness.
• Poverty of rights and freedom appears in those who have no voice: the unborn, the trafficked, the incarcerated, the refugee seeking asylum, and the person trapped in an abusive situation. Leo’s insistence that Christ is encountered in the powerless makes these encounters moments of revelation.

In daily life, these six faces are not rare. They are everywhere. The challenge Leo gives is not to “find” the poor but to recognize the Christ who is already speaking through them. The encounter becomes possible when we allow ourselves to be interrupted, displaced, and converted by the presence of the Lord hidden in human vulnerability.

Encountering the Six Faces of the Poor through the Liturgical Life

If you were searching Delixi Te for the word ‘liturgy or liturgical,’ you would have been disappointed. On the contrary, the liturgical connection in Dilexi te comes into focus once you see how Leo treats the poor not as a theme of Christian life but as a mode of Christ’s presence. The liturgy is where the Church learns to recognize and receive that presence. In the Eucharist, Christ comes to us hidden, vulnerable, and self‑emptying. Leo draws a direct line from that Eucharistic mystery to the six forms of poverty he names. The same Christ who gives himself under the signs of bread and wine gives himself under the “signs” of human weakness: the hungry body, the silenced voice, the fragile life, the person deprived of rights or freedom. The liturgy trains the Church’s perception so that the eyes that adore Christ on the altar can recognize him in the lowly. This is why Leo calls contact with the poor a “revelation” rather than an ethical obligation. It is a continuation of the same encounter that begins at the altar.

This also means that ministry to the poor is not an activity that flows from the liturgy but an activity that extends the liturgy into the world. Here again is Augustine’s insight, which Leo retrieves to teach that the Church receives the Body of Christ in order to become the Body of Christ, and then to serve the Body of Christ in the poor. It truly is the Eucharistic people who shape the Church into a community capable of seeing Christ in every form of poverty, and the encounter with the poor becomes a kind of lived doxology—an act of worship carried into the streets, workplaces, and margins of society. In this way, Leo binds together Eucharistic devotion and concrete solidarity: the altar and the poor are two places where the same Lord waits to be met.

Pope Leo XIV’s Own Encounters with the Six Faces of the Poor

Leo’s own ministry before the papacy already placed him in sustained, concrete contact with each of the six faces of poverty, which is why Dilexi te reads not as theory but as memory. As a parish priest and later a bishop, he spent years in direct service to the materially poor through soup kitchens, parish aid networks, and diocesan outreach programs. His pastoral rounds regularly brought him into relationship with the socially marginalized—migrants, the elderly living alone, and those who felt invisible in the Church. His spiritual direction work placed him alongside people experiencing moral and spiritual poverty, walking with the despairing, the addicted, and those who felt far from God. His commitment to education and catechesis led him to address cultural poverty, especially among youth and adults who lacked access to formation. His hospital visits, prison ministry, and accompaniment of families in crisis immersed him in personal and social fragility. His advocacy for migrants, the unborn, and victims of trafficking brought him face‑to‑face with those deprived of rights and freedom.

Taken together, Leo’s pre‑papal ministry formed the very lens through which he later articulated the theology of Dilexi te: he had already encountered Christ in these six wounds of humanity long before he named them.