Dilexit nos: Why is Pope Francis interested in the Sacred Heart?

Why did the pope choose to depart from highly relevant social issues to dedicate his fourth encyclical to an ancient devotion, the Sacred Heart of Jesus? Following Lumen fidei (2013), which continued a text prepared by Benedict XVI intended to complete his trilogy on the theological virtues (hope, charity, and faith), Pope Francis’ next two encyclicals focused on the environment in Laudato si' (2015) and on fraternity against populism and war in “Fratelli tutti” (2020). In “Dilexit nos” (“He Loved Us”), published October 24, the pope offered a spiritual antidote to a modernity he critiques, sometimes sharply.

“Insatiable consumers,” “superficial satisfactions,” “obsessive desires,” wars, rationalism, artificial intelligence, and “standardized thinking”… One in four pages of this encyclical contained passages negatively depicting modernity—culturally, scientifically, geopolitically, or economically. But what is the connection to the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus?

In the 19th century, as Italian theologian Enrico Cattaneo noted, this spirituality acted as “a barrier against the widespread rationalistic mentality that fueled atheistic and anti-clerical culture,” both within the church and in relation to the modern world, as the Jesuit specified in a 2022 article in La Civiltà Cattolica. Pope Francis appears to believe that devotion to the Sacred Heart can once again save faith.

Though often depicted as breaking away from his predecessors—or even as a “leftist pope”—Francis here aligns with the perspective of Pius XI, who, in the encyclical Miserentissimus Redemptor, described the Feast of the Sacred Heart as a bastion against “laws and movements of the people contrary to the divine and natural law.” The Argentine pope also follows in the footsteps of Pius XII, who opposed in his encyclical on the Sacred Heart, Haurietis aquas, this devotion to a “society contaminated by religious indifference (and) steeped in the principles of atheistic materialism and secularism.”

Yet Dilexit nos is not merely an anti-modern text. “We must remember that before it became a Vendée symbol in opposition to the 'Reign of Terror,' the Sacred Heart was a typically Jesuit devotion,” recalled Fabrice Bouthillon, a contemporary history professor whose thesis focused on Pius XI. Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque initiated this devotion in the 17th century and had a Jesuit confessor—Father Claude La Colombière. Thus, it is possible that the pope’s Jesuit identity drew him back to it. Moreover, it has also traditionally been an anti-Jansenist devotion, emphasizing a God of love, not vengeance. Jansenism was a rigorist movement opposed to the pope's authority and the idea that man can be saved through good works; the Jesuits opposed it in the 17th century.

In Dilexit nos, Pope Francis mentions this five times and seems intent on resuming the fight against Catholic intellectual missteps: intransigence, intellectualism, and disdain for popular piety. The pope set certain limits on popular piety—no adoration of images, dolorism, or ritualistic withdrawal. Still, his main critique appears to have focused on “communities and pastors who only concentrate on (…) structural reforms devoid of the Gospel.”

On June 29, 2019, Francis used precisely these words in a firm letter to German Catholics on the synodal path, who called for greater roles for women in the church and reforms in sexual morality. By publishing his call to rediscover the spirituality of the Sacred Heart of Jesus four days before the conclusion of the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis may be sending a message to those who see this process as an opportunity for major structural reforms.