Pope Leo XIV has called on popular movements to take up the moral mission of healing societies wounded by “inhuman indifference,” urging them to act as “champions of humanity” and “poets of solidarity” in a world that too often prizes profit over people.
Speaking to participants of the Fifth World Meeting of Popular Movements, the Holy Father reflected on the legacy of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, the 1891 encyclical that gave birth to Catholic social teaching. According to Vatican News, Pope Leo XIV said his predecessor “took the side of the poor and denounced the submission of the majority to the power of comparatively few,” describing work conditions of that era as “little better than slavery itself.”
A Call to the Margins
Pope Leo emphasized that popular movements rise “from the peripheries of society” in response to unjust systems and must always be “animated by love.” He praised these movements as “true community spaces full of faith, hope, and especially love, which remains the greatest virtue of all.”
“The poor Church for the poor,” he added, “must walk courageously, prophetically, and joyfully with popular movements, since Jesus has hidden His face in that of the poor.”
For Pope Leo, the poor are not outsiders but central to the Gospel message. “Rather than being on the peripheries, the poor are at the center of the Gospel,” he affirmed, warning that inequality remains “the root of social ills.”
The New Faces of Injustice
Reflecting on what he called the “new things” of the modern age, Pope Leo pointed to the paradox of “artificial intelligence in our pockets while millions of people languish in deprivation.” He lamented that “bad management generates and increases inequalities with the pretext of progress,” saying that when systems fail to uphold human dignity, they also “fail in justice.”
Among today’s gravest moral challenges, the Pope highlighted the climate crisis, which “hits the poorest people and countries” the hardest. He also criticized how social media promotes “falsely exaggerated lifestyles and unbridled consumerism,” deepening envy and exclusion among the poor.
Digital platforms, he warned, exploit users with “dark patterns” that fuel addictive behaviors, while the pharmaceutical industry promotes “a cult of physical wellbeing, almost an idolatry of the body,” ignoring the human mystery of suffering. This, he said, has led to dependency on dangerous substances such as opioids and fentanyl—“especially in the United States,” according to the Pope.
Exploitation and Migration
Turning to the exploitation behind modern technologies, Pope Leo denounced the “paramilitary violence and child labor” tied to the extraction of coltan and lithium—minerals essential for electronics and batteries. “The competition among the great powers and the large corporations for its extraction represents a grave menace to the sovereignty and the stability of poor states,” he said.
The Holy Father also reaffirmed the right of nations to protect their borders, but insisted that this must be balanced by “the moral obligation to provide refuge.” He condemned “ever more inhuman measures—even celebrated politically—that treat migrants as if they were garbage and not human beings.”
“Christianity, on the other hand,” Pope Leo said, “refers to the God who is love, who creates us and calls us to live as brothers and sisters.”
Rebuilding the Human Family
According to Vatican News, Pope Leo XIV thanked popular movements for filling the void left by failing social institutions, saying they help restore justice and compassion in communities fractured by neglect. “The Church supports your just struggles for land, housing and work,” he said. “Like my predecessor Francis, I believe that just ways begin from the ground up, from the periphery toward the centre.”
He ended his address with a simple but powerful affirmation: “Housing, work and land are sacred rights—it is worthwhile to fight for them, and I would like you to hear me say, ‘I am here, I am with you.’”
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