October 2025
Pope Leo - Dilexi Te - Chicago labor - Peru - Popular movements - Gustavo Gutierrez - YCW Manual 100
Friends,
Welcome to our October newsletter.
This month we have a big focus on Pope Leo, who published his first major document, Dilexi Te, earlier this month. We share Matthew Shadle’s introduction to this important document.
We also feature a report on the pope’s meeting with Chicago labor leaders (photo above) plus a new article by Justin McLellan in National Catholic Reporter, who travelled to Chulucanas in Peru, where the future pontiff began his ministry some forty years ago.
In Rome, Leo gave a remarkable to popular movements from around the world that met at the Vatican this week while L’Osservatore Romano has published extracts from the late Pope Francis’ introduction to liberation theologian, Gustavo Gutierrez’s final book.
On a historical note, this month marks the centenary of the publication of Cardijn’s landmark YCW Manual, which first appeared in 1925, transforming the Church’s methods of community organizing.
Richard Pütz reflects on the revolution launched by Jesus’ with his Beatitudes while Pat Branson offers his usual biblical insights.
The Cardijn Associates Team
Pope Leo thanks Chicago labor leaders
Pope Leo met with a delegation of labor leaders from Chicago on October 9, 2025. In his address, he thanked them for their collaboration with the Church.
“It is encouraging to hear of the strides that you have made in broadening the participation and inclusion of minorities in the labor movement through apprenticeships and training,” Pope Leo said.
“At the same time, your commitment to the protection of the environment by teaching the skills needed for the development of renewable energies is not only commendable but also timely, given the urgency of the need to care for our common home.
“Above all, please know of my appreciation for your welcome of immigrants and refugees, especially your support of food pantries and shelters,” he added.
READ MORE
Pope Leo, Address to labor leaders from Chicago (Vatican)
Michael Sean Winters, Pope Leo’s support for organized labor should inspire Catholic institutions (America Magazine)
Popular movements meet in Rome
The Fifth World Meeting of Popular Movements took place in Rome from October 21-24. Addressing the meeting, Pope Leo noted that “today, exclusion is the new face of social injustice.”
“The gap between a ‘small minority’—1% of the population—and the vast majority has widened considerably. This exclusion is a ‘novelty’ that Pope Francis has denounced as a ‘throwaway culture,’ vehemently stating: ‘The excluded are not “exploited,” but waste, “leftovers.”’
“Once again, we are faced with an ethical vacuum into which evil easily insinuates itself,” Pope Leo warned. “This is why popular movements, as well as people of good will, Christians, believers and governments, are urgently called to fill this void, establishing processes of justice and solidarity that spread throughout society.”
READ MORE
Popular movements combat exclusion: Leo
Discurso del Papa León XIV a los participantes en el Encuentro Mundial de Movimientos Populares (Vatican)
Encuentro Mundial Movimientos Populares -Tierra Techo Trabajo (Facebook)
Introducing Dilexi Te
With great anticipation, on October 9, Pope Leo XIV released the first major teaching document of his papacy, the apostolic exhortation Dilexi Te, writes Matthew Shadle at Window Light. The document focuses on love for the poor or, to use a term introduced more recently, the “preferential option for the poor” (#90).
The document adopts the same “see-judge-act” structure used by Pope Francis in several of his documents, beginning with a survey of the challenge to be addressed, continuing with an outline of relevant scriptural and theological themes, and ending with an exhortation to action.
READ MORE
Pope Leo, Dilexi Te (Vatican)
A (Synodal) Church which is Poor and for the Poor (Window Light)
Love for the Poor and the Church’s Great Tradition (Window Light)
Robert Prevost in Peru
Long before he was the successor of St. Peter, Pope Leo XIV had a different name to the faithful of St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Chulucanas, writes Justin McLellan in National Catholic Reporter.
“We called him Father Robertito, because we were very close to him,” Elena Lozada Seminario told the National Catholic Reporter. “He was always visiting the communities, going to the countryside. People loved him because he was so simple, so humble.”
As a young missionary and priest of only three years, Prevost was sent to Chulucanas where he spent just one year. The pastoral model he encountered — rooted in synodal governance, lay leadership and social mission — shaped his later ministry in Trujillo and, decades later, guided his approach as bishop of Chiclayo.
READ MORE
Prevost’s Peru was a Vatican II laboratory of church renewal (National Catholic Reporter)
Theology: Gutierrez “shaped the life of the Church”: Pope Francis
L’Osservatore Romano has published excerpts from Pope Francis’s preface to the book “Living and Thinking the God of the Poor,” the final work by Gustavo Gutiérrez, published posthumously and edited by Leo Guardado of Fordham University.
“Gustavo Gutiérrez, throughout his long life, was a faithful servant of God and a friend of the poor,” Pope Francis wrote. “His theology shaped the life of the Church and remains relevant today, with a freshness that opens new paths for following Jesus.”
“Upon his death, I said: ‘Today I think of Gustavo, Gustavo Gutiérrez. A great man, a man of the Church who knew how to remain silent when necessary, who knew how to suffer when necessary, and who knew how to bear so much apostolic fruit and such a rich theology.’
READ MORE
Prefacio inédito de Francisco al libro de Gutiérrez: “Dios no olvida al más pequeño” (Vatican News)
Centenary: The 1925 YCW Manual
This month marks the centenary of the first edition of the YCW Manual (Manuel de la JOC), originally drafted by Cardijn and published in October 1925.
This manual together with the “definitive” 1930 second edition kindled the flame for the YCW’s rapid expansion around the world. Indeed, amazingly, the YCW already existed in fifty countries by the time World War II broke out in September 1939.
The Joseph Cardijn Digital Library has now published new online editions of these two classic YCW Manuals in the original French. But you can simply right click in Chrome browser to read the manuals in English.
READ THE MANUALS
Reflection: The Revolution Jesus preached
Let’s start with a question that has haunted contemplatives and activists for two thousand years, writes Richard Pütz:
What if we actually lived the Sermon on the Mount? Not just studied it. Admired it from a safe distance. Or turned it into comforting spiritual quotes for social media.
But lived it — in our workplaces, neighborhoods, political choices, and daily encounters with power and poverty, with courage and determination.
READ MORE
The Revolution Jesus Preached: Living the Sermon on the Mount Today (Cardijn Reflections)
Gospel: Anxious? Or eager?
I found myself wondering about Cardijn’s image of Jesus, writes Pat Branson. A quick search of his book Laypeople into Action produced a number of references to Jesus and this one struck me as being particularly significant in the context of this Gospel Enquiry:
“The actions of the young workers should be thought of as the personal acts of a son of God and a brother of Jesus Christ, through body and spirit, for the service of God and the human community.”
The secular character of European society was met by the foundation of the Young Christian Workers Movement. Yet secularism was a dominant force in the time of Jesus and it still holds sway in the 21st century.
READ MORE
Anxious? Or Eager? (Cardijn Reflections)
News brief
Dorothy Day Symposium
Read more: https://www.dorothydayguild.org/rome2025
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