Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe

The Official Name and Rank

The official name of the feast, in the General Roman Calendar, is the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (sollemnitas Domini Nostri Iesu Christi universorum Regis)^[7]. It is a solemnity of the Lord, that is, a feast of the highest rank celebrating a mystery of Christ himself, like Christmas, Epiphany or the Ascension^[8]. The liturgical colour is white, the colour of feasts of the Lord. Like every solemnity, it begins on the previous evening and includes the recitation of the Creed at Mass^[9].

The title says the whole programme: Christ is not only the King of Israel or the King of hearts, he is the King of the Universe — of persons, of families and of societies. That is what Pius XI wanted professed publicly, each year, before the whole world^[10].

The Date: The Last Sunday of the Year

Since the 1969 calendar reform, the solemnity has been celebrated on the 34th and last Sunday of Ordinary Time, that is, the Sunday immediately preceding the First Sunday of Advent^[11]. Depending on the year, it therefore falls between 20 and 26 November:

This placing is not decorative: by closing the liturgical year just before Advent reopens it on the expectation of the Lord who comes, the feast gives the whole cycle its direction. The Church's year does not end on an assessment, but on an acclamation — and it does not begin again on a habit, but on an expectation^[13].

Pius XI does not create a title: he has celebrated what Scripture affirms from the first page to the last. The encyclical Quas primas itself surveys the Old and the New Testament to establish the kingship of Christ before instituting the feast^[14].

The Old Testament Announces an Eternal King

To David, through the prophet Nathan, God promises a dynasty without end:

"Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever." — Second Book of Samuel 7:16^[15]

The royal psalms sing of this consecrated king on Zion and foretell a boundless dominion:

"I have set my king on Zion, my holy mountain." — Psalm 2:6^[16]

And the prophet Daniel, in a night vision, sees "one like a son of man" receiving a kingship that shall not pass away:

"His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingship one that shall not be destroyed." — Book of Daniel 7:14^[17]

It is from this vision that Jesus will draw his favourite title, the Son of Man, and it is this vision that the first reading of the solemnity rereads every Year B^[18].

The Angel Gabriel Announces Him to Mary

At the Annunciation, the angel does not promise only a child: he promises a reign without end, taking up word for word the promise made to David:

"He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end." — Gospel according to Saint Luke 1:32-33^[19]

See the article Annunciation of the Lord (25 March). Note the formula: "of his kingdom there will be no end" — exactly the cuius regni non erit finis by which, according to Pius XI, the Council of Nicaea (325) affirmed the royal dignity of Christ in the Creed^[20] — a formula which the history of texts attaches to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan symbol (381) — and on which he would rely sixteen centuries later.

Before Pilate, Christ Claims His Kingship

The decisive moment is the trial before Pilate. Asked "Are you the King of the Jews?", Jesus does not evade the question — he clarifies the nature of his reign:

"My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world." — Gospel according to Saint John 18:36^[21]

And when Pilate presses him — "So you are a king?" — the answer is a solemn affirmation:

"You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth." — Gospel according to Saint John 18:37^[22]

The title Jesus refuses from the crowds who want to make him king by force (Jn 6:15), he claims in chains before the representative of Caesar. The inscription on the cross — "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" (Jn 19:19) — will proclaim it despite Pilate, in Hebrew, in Latin and in Greek, that is, to the whole world^[23]. See also Palm Sunday, where the crowds already acclaim this humble King riding on a donkey.

The Apostles Unfold the Reign

After Easter, the apostles proclaim the reign as an accomplished fact and a future to await. Saint Paul writes to the Colossians:

"He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son." — Saint Paul, Colossians 1:13^[24]

The same Paul sets the horizon: "for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet" (1 Corinthians 15:25)^[25]. And Revelation contemplates the outcome, the faithful Rider bearing on his cloak and on his thigh the definitive name:

"King of kings and Lord of lords." — Revelation 19:16^[26]

Finally, the parable of the Last Judgement (Matthew 25:31-46), read every Year A at the solemnity, shows the Son of Man seated on his throne of glory inviting the blessed: "Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Mt 25:34)^[27]. The King will judge — and the criterion of the judgement will be love of the least.

Pius XI does not institute a feast out of a taste for ceremony: he answers a situation he judges dramatic. As early as his first encyclical Ubi arcano (1922), he had diagnosed the cause of the calamities of the time: "this flood of evils upon the world was due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of" their private as well as their public life, and "never could" a firm hope of lasting peace among peoples "dawn so long as individuals and nations refused to recognise and proclaim the sovereignty of Our Saviour" ^[28]. From this diagnosis comes the motto of his whole pontificate: to seek the peace of Christ through the reign of Christ^[29]:

"And so, after We had affirmed that the peace of Christ must be sought through the reign of Christ, We declared Our intention to work towards it to the full extent of Our powers; through the reign of Christ, We said, for in order to bring back and consolidate peace, We saw no more effective means than to restore the sovereignty of Our Lord." — Pius XI, Quas primas^[30]

A Europe That Had Driven Christ Out of the City

In 1925, the Great War had left its millions of dead seven years earlier, and peace had not brought God back into the laws. In France, the 1905 law of separation is twenty years old; in Mexico, religious persecution is about to erupt in the months that follow and will provoke the Cristero War (1926–1929)^[31]; in Russia, the Soviet regime openly persecutes the Church. Pius XI names the enemy: laicism, that is, the methodical organisation of public life as if God did not exist:

"The plague of our time is laicism, as it is called, with its errors and its criminal undertakings. […] For it began by denying the sovereignty of Christ over all nations." — Pius XI, Quas primas^[32]

The remedy he prescribes is not first of all political: it is a public act of faith. "To prescribe to the Catholic world the worship of Christ the King" in order to "bring an effective remedy to the plague which has corrupted human society" ^[33]. A feast, then — because a feast has a whole people profess each year what the laws deny.

1925: Holy Year and Nicaea Centenary

The choice of year is anything but arbitrary. 1925 is a Holy Year, and it is also the sixteenth centenary of the first ecumenical council of Nicaea (325) — the one which, against Arius, defined the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father. Pius XI recalls that this council inscribed in the Creed the words cuius regni non erit finis ("of whose kingdom there shall be no end"):

"It was this Council which defined and proclaimed as Catholic dogma the consubstantiality of the Only-begotten Son of God with his Father; it was this Council which, by inserting in its formula of faith or Creed the words cuius regni non erit finis, at the same time affirmed the royal dignity of Christ." — Pius XI, Quas primas^[34]

Sixteen centuries after Nicaea, to institute the feast of Christ the King is thus to close a parenthesis: the same Christ whose divinity Nicaea proclaimed is publicly recognised in his kingship. The Holy Year itself, Pius XI writes, "on more than one occasion contributed to shedding light on the kingship of Christ" — the new feast is its crowning^[35].

The encyclical of 11 December 1925 is not a mere decree of institution: it is a summa on the kingship of Christ, which first establishes the doctrine (Scripture, threefold power, nature of the kingdom), then draws the consequences for persons and societies, before instituting the feast^[36].

A King by Nature and by Conquest

Pius XI distinguishes two titles of the kingship of Christ. He is King by nature, as the Only-begotten Son of God, to whom all things belong by right of divine birth. And he is King by conquest, for having redeemed us: "we no longer belong to ourselves" since Christ bought us at the price of his blood^[37]. This twofold reason grounds the universality of the reign: nothing and no one escapes it — neither individuals, nor families, nor nations.

The encyclical adds a more intimate title, the one that touches hearts: Christ is the King of hearts, "because of his inconceivable charity which surpasses all human understanding and because of his gentleness and his goodness which draw all hearts to him: for in the whole human race there never has been and never will be anyone loved as Christ Jesus is" ^[38].

A True Threefold Power

The kingship of Christ is not an honorary title: it involves a real power, which Pius XI describes in three branches, like that of a true king. Christ is Lawgiver — "to whom they are bound to obey", and the evangelists "show him to us in the very exercise of his legislative power": the Sermon on the Mount is a law^[39]. He holds judicial power, which he himself declares to have received from the Father — "the Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son" (Jn 5:22) — with the inseparable right to reward or punish, "even during their life" ^[40]. Finally he holds executive power: "all must inevitably be subject to his rule; no one, if rebellious, will be able to escape the condemnation and the punishments which Jesus foretold" ^[41].

A Kingdom Above All Spiritual

But — and this is the point that rules out in advance any accusation of theocracy — "this kingdom is above all spiritual and concerns above all the spiritual order": the proof is "the attitude of Christ the Lord" himself, who refused the crown of the crowds and declared to Pilate that his kingship was not of this world^[42].

Christ exercised no temporal power on earth and seized no crown: his reign is exercised through truth proposed to minds, through obedience to the commandments, and through the charity that draws hearts. That is why the Church, which continues his mission, claims no political power: she asks only that societies recognise Christ instead of excluding him. For the Church's full doctrine on the distinction of the two powers, see What does the Church say about politics?.

Christ's Rights over Persons and Societies

Duties flow from this kingship. Individuals must submit their whole life to Christ; families, their home; and societies themselves are not exempt: a nation which organises its laws as if Christ did not reign commits, according to the encyclical, a public apostasy whose fruits are "the seeds of hatred, sown on every side; jealousies and rivalries between peoples" — Pius XI was writing in the aftermath of one world war and on the eve of a second^[43].

Concretely, to honour Christ the King means, for a society: to respect the natural law and the commandments in legislation, to protect marriage and the family, to guarantee the freedom of the Church and Christian education, and to refuse the ideologies that make the State an absolute. This is not theocracy — the Pope asks no throne for the Church — it is the refusal of State atheism^[44].

31 December 1925 at Saint Peter's

For the year 1925, Pius XI wants an exceptional celebration: "For this year, We desire that this renewal take place on the 31st of this month. On that day, We shall celebrate the pontifical Mass in honour of Christ the King, and this consecration shall be pronounced in Our presence" — as the solemn close of the Holy Year, before the Catholic world gathered in Rome^[45]. The event did take place: the Noaillat couple, who had initiated the petition for the feast, attended the first Mass of Christ the King on 31 December at Saint Peter's^[46]. Then, from 1926 until 1969, the feast was celebrated each year on the last Sunday of October, which immediately precedes All Saints^[47].

The Consecration Renewed Each Year

The institution includes a precise prescription:

"We also prescribe that each year, on that same day, the consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus shall be renewed, a consecration whose annual renewal Our Predecessor Pius X, of holy memory, had already ordered." — Pius XI, Quas primas^[48]

The consecration itself goes back to Leo XIII: by the encyclical Annum sacrum, dated 25 May 1899, he had ordered the consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, recited on 11 June 1899 — a gesture Pius XI now attaches to the feast of Christ the King, the two mysteries being but one: the Heart of the King^[49]. For the full history of this devotion, see Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

The Prayer and the Indulgence

The formula recited on that day is the act of consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which begins "Most sweet Jesus, Redeemer of the human race…": after the consecration of those who pray, it asks Christ to be the King of repentant prodigals, of the straying and of unbelievers, and concludes by asking freedom and protection for the Church, peace for all nations, and by making the praise of the divine Heart resound^[50]. The Church attaches a plenary indulgence to it, under the usual conditions (confession, communion, prayer for the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff and detachment from all sin), for whoever recites it publicly on the solemnity^[51]. To recite this prayer on Christ the King day is thus to do personally what the feast proclaims collectively: to place oneself, with the whole world, under the reign of Christ.

From 1926 to 1969, the feast is celebrated each last Sunday of October, which immediately precedes All Saints: Christ the King in some way leads the march of the saints who reign with him^[52]. The liturgical reform born of the Second Vatican Council moves it: the motu proprio Mysterii paschalis of Saint Paul VI (promulgated 14 February 1969, in force 1 January 1970) and the new General Roman Calendar fix it on the last Sunday of Ordinary Time, under the title "Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe" ^[53].

The Meaning of the Transfer

The transfer is not a mere change of date: it gives the feast its full eschatological dimension. Placed at the end of the liturgical year, it no longer celebrates only the present kingship of Christ over the Church militant, but turns our gaze towards his glorious return: it is the Sunday of the King who comes to judge the living and the dead, just before Advent makes us await his coming^[54]. The Church's year thus ends as history itself will end: with the manifestation of the Kingdom. See The Liturgical Year and Ordinary Time.

Note: in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite (1962 calendar), the feast stayed on the last Sunday of October — the two calendars therefore celebrate the same mystery a month apart^[55].

The Antiphon and the Preface

The Mass of the solemnity opens on the acclamation of the slain Lamb become King: "Dignus est Agnus qui occisus est" — "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain" (Rev 5:12)^[56]. The theological heart of the celebration is the proper preface, which sums up the whole mystery in a single sentence:

Regnum veritatis et vitae, regnum sanctitatis et gratiae, regnum iustitiae, amoris et pacis — "a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace." — Preface of the Solemnity of Christ the King^[57]

Seven words refuting seven lies: against the kingdoms of falsehood and death, of corruption and mediocrity, of injustice, hatred and war, the Church proclaims the only reign that saves — and she proclaims it in the preface, which belongs to the Eucharistic Prayer and may be sung or said.

The Laudes Regiae: Christus Vincit

The liturgy had long known an acclamation of Christ the King: the Laudes Regiae, inherited from the Carolingian age (8th century), chant the triple acclamation at great feasts:

Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat — "Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ commands." — Laudes Regiae^[58]

They are still heard at great pontifical celebrations — papal inaugurations, Corpus Christi and Christ the King processions: the 1925 feast invented nothing; it gave a proper, universal date to what the liturgy had been singing for over a thousand years^[59].

The Readings for Years A, B and C

Like every Sunday, the solemnity follows the three-year cycle. Each year sheds light on a different face of the kingship^[60]:

Year A shows the Shepherd-King who judges; Year B, the humiliated King who bears witness before Pilate; Year C, the crucified King who opens paradise to the thief. Three faces, one King — and the most overwhelming is the third: it is on the cross, between two criminals, that the kingship of Christ shines out most clearly^[61].

The Liturgy of the Hours

The solemnity has a proper office in the Liturgy of the Hours: hymns, psalms and patristic readings sing Christ the King throughout the day, from First Vespers (the previous evening) to Compline^[62]. The intercessions carry the extension of Christ's reign — the Church's official prayer thus takes up, each year, the very intention of Pius XI^[63].

Diocesan Youth Day

On 22 November 2020, at the Christ the King Mass, Pope Francis announces the transfer of the diocesan celebration of World Youth Day: hitherto fixed on Palm Sunday, it will henceforth be held, from 2021 onwards, on Christ the King Sunday^[64]. The link is crystal clear: Palm Sunday acclaimed the King who enters Jerusalem to die; Christ the King acclaims the King who returns in glory — and it is to youth, the future of the Church, that this acclamation is entrusted. See Palm Sunday.

The Cry of the Cristeros: "¡Viva Cristo Rey!"

Barely instituted, the feast receives its baptism of blood. In Mexico, religious persecution triggers the war of the Cristeros (1926–1929): Catholic peasants take up arms to defend the Church's freedom, with "¡Viva Cristo Rey!" — "Long live Christ the King!" — as their rallying cry^[65]. On 23 November 1927, the young Jesuit priest Miguel Pro, condemned without trial, dies by firing squad forgiving his executioners, arms outstretched in the form of a cross, launching that same cry: "¡Viva Cristo Rey!" ^[66]. See Blessed Miguel Pro (1891–1927). The feast born on paper in Rome was becoming, in Mexico, a cry of martyrs.

Cerro de los Ángeles, Centre of Spain

In Spain, the kingship of Christ takes the form of a monument: on the Cerro de los Ángeles at Getafe, regarded as the geographical centre of the country, King Alfonso XIII consecrates Spain to the Sacred Heart on 30 May 1919, before a monumental statue of Christ the King with open arms^[67]. During the Civil War, the monument is desecrated and blown up on 7 August 1936 — the militiamen going so far as to "execute" the statue of Christ by firing squad, a photographed scene that travelled around the world^[68]. Rebuilt after the war, the shrine remains one of the great places of Christ's kingship in Europe, with the remains of the old monument kept facing the new one like a relic of the persecution^[69].

Saint John Paul II: Open the Doors to Christ the King

On 22 October 1978, at the Mass inaugurating his pontificate, John Paul II launched the appeal that sums up the whole spirit of the feast:

"Be not afraid! Open wide, open wide the doors to Christ! Open to his saving power the frontiers of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilisation and development." — Saint John Paul II, inauguration homily, 22 October 1978^[70]

To open the doors of States, economies and cultures: that is exactly what Pius XI was asking in 1925. Half a century later, the Polish Pope, come from a country subjected to an atheist regime, took up the Christ the King programme before the whole world.

The Stone Giants: Rio, Almada, Świebodzin

The kingship of Christ has also been written in stone, on a scale the cathedrals never dared. In Rio de Janeiro, Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado, arms open over the bay, was inaugurated on 12 October 1931: a statue of reinforced concrete clad in soapstone, whose building site (opened in 1922) predates Quas primas — so it cannot be made into a response to the encyclical^[71]. In Almada, facing Lisbon, the national shrine of Cristo Rei, inspired by Rio, was inaugurated in 1959 in thanksgiving for Portugal spared by the Second World War^[72]. In Poland, at Świebodzin, a 36-metre-high statue was completed in 2010, then becoming the tallest statue of Christ in the world^[73]. Two continents, three open arms: the 20th century, which drove Christ out of the laws, raised him on the hills — and the 21st century followed in 2010.

Already There and Not Yet

The Christian who acclaims Christ the King does not claim that evil has vanished: he professes that Christ already reigns and will reign fully. Already: risen, Christ is "seated at the right hand of the Father", he reigns over the Church through the sacraments and in the hearts that welcome him^[74]. Not yet: nations revolt, persecutions continue, and the Last Judgement has not taken place — the Catechism teaches that the Kingdom will come at his glorious return, not through a historical triumph, but through God's victory over the final unleashing of evil^[75].

That is why every Mass says, before communion, the prayer Jesus himself taught: "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" (Mt 6:10)^[76]. The feast of Christ the King is the solemn amen to that petition, renewed every year-end: yes, Lord, come and reign.

The Kingdom and the Divine Will

In the spirituality of the Divine Will, received by the Servant of God Luisa Piccarreta (1865–1947), this "Thy kingdom come" takes on a particular resonance: it announces the third Fiat — Fiat, the word by which God creates — the Kingdom of the Divine Will on earth as in heaven, after the Fiat of Creation and that of Redemption^[77]. To live in the Divine Will, here, does not only mean doing God's will by obeying him: it is receiving his very Will so that it may act within us. Christ already reigns in the hearts that welcome him; this Kingdom asked for in the Our Father is, according to this spirituality, its full accomplishment. The feast of Christ the King, which closes the year on the King whose reign shall have no end, thus becomes for souls living by this spirituality the icon of hope: the same Christ who reigns today in hearts will reign tomorrow, fully, over a reconciled world.

Does the Feast of Christ the King Call for Theocracy?

No — and Pius XI said so himself: the kingdom of Christ is "above all spiritual" ^[78]. The Church asks for neither throne, nor army, nor ministry: the Second Vatican Council states that she "is in no way confused with the political community, nor bound to any political system", while contributing "to spreading the reign of justice and charity"^[79]. She asks that laws respect God and man, which is the opposite of clerical rule. History illustrates it: where Christ the King was acclaimed by martyrs — the Cristeros, Miguel Pro — it was against a State persecuting the Church^[80]. In short — and not as a quotation: such a King relativises all powers instead of sacralising them.

Why So Recent a Feast for So Ancient a Dogma?

The kingship of Christ is indeed as old as the faith — the Creed has confessed it since Nicaea (325) and Nicaea-Constantinople (381)^[81] — but the Church institutes feasts when the times require: Corpus Christi in the 13th century in the face of Eucharistic heresies, the Sacred Heart (feast granted in 1765, extended to the whole Church in 1856) in the face of Jansenism — following the link Pius XI himself establishes — Christ the King in the 20th century in the face of laicism^[82]. See Corpus Christi and Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. A feast does not invent a doctrine: it has it publicly professed at the moment it is denied.

Does "My Kingdom Is Not of This World" Contradict the Feast?

This is the most frequent objection — and Christ's own word answers it: his kingdom is not of this world, that is, it draws neither its origin nor its means from it (no army, no coup d'état), but it is for this world, which it comes to save and to judge^[83]. To say "Christ reigns" does not mean the Church governs States: it means no State governs without giving an account, and no man is left an orphan without a King.

Why Late November, in the Cold and the Dark?

Because that is the point: in the Northern Hemisphere, the liturgical year ends as the days shorten, and the Church then lights the greatest light — Christ the King — before entering Advent^[84]. Beyond Catholicism, several Protestant traditions share this year-end turned towards the Kingdom: the Church of England celebrates Christ the King on the Sunday before Advent, and the Lutheran Churches of Germany close with the Sunday of Eternity (Ewigkeitssonntag)^[85].

Related Ignispedia Articles

• Ascension of the Lord — the inauguration of the reign: Christ raised on high sets his throne at the Father's right hand
• Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — the devotion to the Heart of the King, the 1899 consecration renewed on Christ the King
• Corpus Christi — the other great feast instituted in the face of a denial, for the Eucharist
• Palm Sunday — the acclamation of the humble King, formerly the day of diocesan WYD celebrations
• Epiphany (6 January) — the Magi adore the newborn King of the Jews
• Christmas (25 December) and Easter — the birth and the victory from which all Christ's kingship proceeds
• Pentecost — the Spirit who extends the Kingdom to all nations
• The Liturgical Year and Ordinary Time — the feast's place in the cycle
• Blessed Miguel Pro (1891–1927) — the martyr of "¡Viva Cristo Rey!"
• Luisa Piccarreta (1865–1947) — the third Fiat and the Kingdom of the Divine Will
• What does the Church say about politics? — the doctrine of the two powers and sound laicity

Principal Sources

• Pius XI, encyclical Quas primas instituting the feast of Christ the King, 11 December 1925, official French text (vatican.va).
• Leo XIII, encyclical Annum sacrum on the consecration of the human race to the Sacred Heart, 25 May 1899.
• Saint Paul VI, apostolic letter in the form of a motu proprio Mysterii paschalis on the liturgical year and the new General Roman Calendar, 14 February 1969.
• Roman Missal, Mass of the solemnity (opening antiphon Dignus est Agnus, proper preface); Roman Lectionary and Liturgy of the Hours, French liturgical translation (AELF).
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 668–672 and 2105.
• Saint John Paul II, homily at the Mass inaugurating the pontificate, 22 October 1978.
• Francis, announcement of the transfer of diocesan WYD celebrations to Christ the King Sunday, 22 November 2020.