An article by Prof. L. Salutati, published on the blog of the Alfonsiana Academy
The first Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Leo XIV has an important political dimension. In this regard, it should be noted that when the Christian vision speaks of politics, as Pius XI already recalled during the audience granted to the leaders of the Catholic University Federation on 18 December 1927, it means ‘the field that concerns the interests of all societies, and which in this respect is the field of the most extensive charity, to which one could say that nothing else, except religion, is superior. […] All Christians are obliged to engage in politics. Politics is the highest form of charity, second only to religious charity towards God” (Pius XI, in L’Osservatore Romano, 23 December 1927, no. 296, 3, coll. 1-4). In the Christian horizon, in fact, politics consists in service to the person and the common good, inspired by the Gospel values of justice, peace and charity, which aims to transform society starting from the inner conversion of man and which, by placing itself at the service of the least, opposes the logic of power and personal interest, while recognising civil authority. The political commitment of believers is a vocation that integrates spirituality and public responsibility, with the aim of building a more humane and just society, not through impositions, but by bearing witness to the values of the Gospel.
In this sense, Leo XIV offers a political reflection when, reinterpreting the entire history of Christianity, from the Hebrew Bible to the last few decades, through the lens of his attention to the poorest, he invites the Catholic Church to live up to its own history, characterised by the commitment of men and women who have spent their lives in the service of the poorest (see in particular Chapter III of the Exhortation). For this reason, the Church cannot necessarily be neutral in the face of the two opposing sides, repeatedly criticised in the text. On the one hand, there is ultra-liberalism, which makes the accumulation of wealth, the cult of individual success and market freedom its goal. On this subject, the Pope’s arguments are more anthropological than economic. He denounces illusory beliefs such as the trickle-down effect of wealth (cf. DT, n. 92), as well as a kind of blindness, difficult to overcome, which prevents us from being alarmed by inequalities that become “dramatic imbalances” (DT, n. 99), with severe judgements on the growth of ‘certain elites of the rich, who live in a bubble of very comfortable and luxurious conditions, almost in another world compared to ordinary people’ (DT, n.11).
On the other hand, Leo XIV distances himself from a privatistic conception of the Christian faith limited to prayer (DT, n. 112) . The strength of this argument lies not only in recalling that love and justice are inseparable from faith, but even more so in the repeated condemnation of a spiritual or ecclesial life that ignores the concrete needs of the poorest. Thus, the Pope writes: ‘Love for the poor […] is the evangelical guarantee of a Church faithful to the heart of God. In fact, every ecclesial renewal has always had this preferential attention to the poor among its priorities‘ (DT, n. 103).
This twofold denunciation highlights the very reason for the Church’s existence, which ’fulfils its deepest vocation when it loves the Lord where He is most disfigured” (DT, n. 52). In doing so, Leo XIV addresses a directly political message to the world: ‘The condition of the poor represents a cry that, in the history of humanity, constantly challenges our lives, our societies, our political and economic systems and, not least, the Church’ (DT, n. 9).
In light of these reflections, the Pope calls for a commitment that goes beyond simply reducing poverty to promoting the elimination of its root causes. In line with Pope Francis, Leo XIV invites us to develop a policy with the poor, drawn up on the basis of their experiences. Realistically, he observes that this requires politicians, social workers and ecclesial institutions to listen authentically to those who live in precarious situations. ‘If politicians and professionals do not listen to them, “democracy atrophies, becomes nominalism, a formality, loses its representativeness, becomes disembodied because it leaves out the people in their daily struggle for dignity, in the construction of their destiny”’ (DT, n. 51).
The political vision is also present when the Pope reiterates the need for states to monitor economic exchanges, to prevent them from benefiting only a ‘happy minority’ (DT, n. 92). His language becomes particularly severe, then, with regard to austerity policies, when: “It becomes normal to ignore the poor and live as if they did not exist. It seems a reasonable choice to organise the economy by asking the people to make sacrifices in order to achieve certain goals that are in the interests of the powerful” (DT, n. 93).
Leo XIV therefore invites Catholic communities, as well as theologians, to overcome a certain indifference towards politics, to join their voices to those of the most vulnerable and to give voice to a fundamental question: ‘Do not the weak have the same dignity as we do? Are those who are born with fewer opportunities worth less as human beings, must they simply survive? The value of our societies depends on the answer we give to these questions, and our future also depends on it’ (DT, n. 95).
This is a vital question, echoing the considerations of Paul VI in Populorum progressio in 1967, which, unfortunately, after almost 60 years, has lost none of its relevance when he notes that: “The fight against poverty, while urgent and necessary, is insufficient. It is a question of building a world in which every human being, without exclusion on grounds of race, religion or nationality, can live a fully human life, free from the servitude imposed by other human beings and by a nature that has not been sufficiently mastered; a world where freedom is not a vain word and where the poor Lazarus can sit at the same table as the rich man” (PP, n. 47) [continued 4/5].
(original is in Italian)
