Pope Leo XIV believes that poverty is also “worrying” in rich countries, such as in Europe, where “more and more families” are not making ends meet, as he warns in his first apostolic exhortation, published this Thursday.
“In rich countries, the relative figures for the number of poor people are no less worrying. In Europe, there are more and more families who cannot make ends meet. In general, it is perceived that the different manifestations of poverty have increased,” he maintains.
Leo XIV has published the first major document of his magisterium, the exhortation ‘Dilexi te’ (I have loved you), a defense of the poor that follows the legacy of his predecessor, the Argentinian Francis, who had begun to prepare this text before dying last April.
In his pages, the new pope says that “we must not let our guard down regarding poverty” and expresses particular concern for “the serious conditions in which very many people find themselves due to the lack of food and water” worldwide.
“Several thousand people die every day from causes related to malnutrition,” he says.
It also warns that poverty “is no longer configured as a single homogeneous condition” but rather leads to multiple forms of impoverishment, “economic and social”, reflecting “the phenomenon of growing inequalities also in generally affluent contexts”.
In this sense, it underlines that currently poverty “is a varied phenomenon” that is not limited to the material.
“Indeed, there are many forms of poverty: that of those who lack the means of material sustenance, the poverty of those who are socially marginalized and have no instruments to give voice to their dignity and their capabilities, moral and spiritual poverty, cultural poverty, that 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,” he affirms.
