“There’s no charity without evangelisation”,Pope Leo XIV tells knights

By Ononye VC
Pope Leo XIV has urged Catholic knights to consider evangelisation above other activities stressing that without evangelisation the Knights’ service to the poor is merely philanthropy.
Pope Leo was speaking when he met with members of the knights of Order of Malta led by their grand master John Dunlap on June 23 at the Vatican.
In his message,Pope Leo XIV underlined the order’s religious character, stressing that without evangelization, the knights’ service to the poor is merely philanthropy.
“Do not limit yourself to helping the needs of the poor, but announce to them the love of God with words and testimony. If this were to be lacking, the order would lose its religious character and would be reduced to being an organization with philanthropic purposes,” Leo wrote in a message to the order on the feast of its patron saint, St. John the Baptist.
The pope also met for the first time with the order’s grand master, John Dunlap, at the Vatican on June 23.
Pope Leo further pointed out multiple times to the order’s important dual purpose of “tuitio fidei and obsequium pauperum.” (Latin for “protection of faith” and “service to the poor.”)
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is both a lay religious order of the Catholic Church and a sovereign state subject to international law.