A new Vatican document challenges wealthy Catholics to move beyond charity toward justice, solidarity and real encounters with the poor.

Pope Leo XIV’s first major document landed in October with surprisingly sharp language. Dilexi Te, a 200-page apostolic exhortation on poverty and justice, does not read like typical Vatican fare. It reads like a challenge the Church is issuing to itself.

“We live in a throwaway culture,” the document states, describing wealthy societies that discard people “without even realising it.” The poor are not charity cases in this framework; they are teachers who can transform how believers understand faith itself.

Authentic Christianity, it argues, is measured not by doctrine or attendance but by concrete relationships with those who struggle.

The timing amplifies the message. The Feast of Christ the King, celebrated annually in late November, was established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI amid rising fascism and nationalism. It celebrates a king who wears thorns instead of gold, who rules from a cross rather than a throne.

Both the papal document and the feast converge on an uncomfortable claim: Christ is found among the suffering, not the successful.

Matthew 25 gets cited repeatedly, the passage where Jesus identifies himself with the hungry, the sick, and the imprisoned. In this reading, ignoring poverty is not just lacking compassion. It is missing the point entirely.

The question is whether that message can break through economic realities that make a genuine encounter nearly impossible.

Catholicism in wealthy nations has largely made peace with prosperity. Economic segregation ensures that Catholics with resources rarely encounter........

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