The first major document issued by the first American pope was welcomed by some Catholics on Long Island on Thursday as what they saw as a continuation of the direction Pope Francis was taking the church in, with a focus on the poor and marginalized.

Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago, called for compassion for those on the margins, including migrants, questioned a global market "dictatorship of an economy that kills" as it fuels rising inequality, and issued a call to combat human trafficking, slavery and other ills.

But the central focus of the document is poverty, including repeated references to the church’s "preferential option for the poor" — a reminder of his 20 years as a missionary in South America when that was a rallying cry of an emerging Catholic movement called "Liberation Th

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