Oct. 9 (UPI) — Pope Leo XIV on Thursday released his first major document, calling on Christians and others not to become indifferent to hunger and extreme poverty across the world.

The pope’s first apostolic exhortation, called Dilexi te, builds on the final text published by Leo’s predecessor Pope Francis, which highlighted the “close connection” between love for God and love for the poor, according to the Vatican.

“With this document, signed on Oct. 4, the feast of Saint Francis of Assis, Pope Leo situates himself firmly on the path laid out by his predecessors, including Saint John XXIII, with his appeal … to wealthier countries not to remain indifferent to nations oppressed by hunger and extreme poverty,” the Vatican said in a news release.

Titled “I Have Loved You,” Leo wrote that Francis had started preparing the document and he had finished it, saying that he is “happy to make the document my own — adding some reflections,” The New York Times reported.

In the document, Leo noted the existence of moral, spiritual and cultural poverty, in addition to the poverty of poorer people and nations lacking the material means of subsistence and calls the world’s commitment to the poor “insufficient.”

Leo wrote that the modern world continues to measure poverty using outdated criteria that “do not correspond to present-day realities,” which the “dictatorship of an economy that kills” has exponentially grown the gap between the rich and poor.

Noting that a “throwaway culture” tolerates indifference toward the poor, Leo called for a change in mentality for people to move away from the “illusion of happiness derived from a comfortable life … centered on the accumulation of wealth and social success at all costs, even at the expense of others.”

“The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate,” Leo wrote. “Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice. Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty.”