Heart-Centered Discernment in Leadership:Pope Francis’s Teachings in Dilexit Nos

This paper articulates the central teachings of Pope Francis’s final encyclical, Dilexit Nos, and explains how these teachings can guide business leadership. Dilexit Nos offers spiritual guidance “on the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus Christ.” This spiritual encyclical concludes with a reminder about the importance of the love of Christ for the work to which the social encyclicals Laudato Si’ and Fratelli Tutti call us. Pope Leo XIV recently clarified the import of Dilexit Nos for our love for the poor in an apostolic exhortation, Dilexi Te, which Francis had been writing prior to his death. Dilexit Nos invites a contemplative dimension that should orient all our activities in the world. Contemplation directed at the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ enables us to center in our own hearts and from there discern what love truly calls us to do. Heart-centered discernment is essential for ethical business leaders aiming to bring about justice and the common good in an integral ecology. This qualitative research study will explain how Francis anchors Ignatian spirituality in the Devotion to the Sacred Heart and provide educators in Jesuit business schools with some practical guidance for applying Francis’s ideas. Integrating elements of Dilexit Nos and Dilexi Te into leadership practices and classes serves to meet the “hunger for an adult spirituality” identified by the Inspirational Paradigm for Jesuit Business Education. This hunger, understood through the lens of Catholic theology, is necessarily tied to the work of justice and love for the poor.