“Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endures throughout all generations.” — Psalm 145 (144): 13
St. Benedict directed his monks to pray the Psalm above during Vespers on Saturdays. While the Book of Psalms has been part of Christian worship since Pentecost (inherited from the Hebrews), this directive from the patriarch of Western monasticism was one of the first documented instances where a liturgical period concluded with a proclamation of God’s reign for all eternity and over all nations.
Fourteen centuries later, on December 11, 1925—just before the close of the 24th Jubilee Year—Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Quas Primas, which boldly renewed this proclamation by instituting the Feast of Christ the King in the Roman Rite—placed at that time near the end of the liturgical year on the Sunday before All Saints Day (instead of the current practice of the last Sunday of the liturgical year).
The pontiff hoped that “the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism [or laicism] has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them.” The Church marked its ninety-eighth celebration of the feast on November 24. Interestingly, the feast this year fell on the day after that of 20th-century martyr Blessed Miguel Pro, SJ, whose last words were “Viva Cristo Rey!”—“Long live Christ the King!”.
Pius XI’s successor, Pope Francis, is set to begin the 32nd Jubilee Year with the opening of the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica on Christmas Eve. The Church will mark the year with pilgrimages (especially to Rome) and penitential acts (with the goal of obtaining indulgences specific to the celebration). However, the centennial year of Quas Primas, which begins two weeks earlier, will probably go unnoticed.
This sort of neglect isn’t new for this encyclical. Hamish Fraser—a Scottish communist turned Catholic convert (quoted by fellow convert Michael Davies)—bluntly concluded in 1976 that the document’s promulgation was the greatest non-event in the entire history of the Church (outside of the institution of a new feast on the liturgical calendar).
A relatively new Catholic publisher—Arouca Press—is attempting to right this wrong by reprinting a title by Fr. Joseph Husslein, a prolific American Jesuit author and editor. Fr. Husslein, in his The Reign of Christ (originally published in 1928) expanded on Pius XI’s appeal for “sermons…preached to the people in every parish to teach them the meaning and the importance of this feast, that they may so order their lives as to be worthy of faithful and obedient subjects of the Divine King.”
Fr. Husslein used Quas Primas as a template for his work, and quoted from it extensively. He first documented the numerous prophecies of the royal sovereignty of Christ throughout the Old Testament.
One such verse proclaiming the coming of Christ the King is known from its use during the Advent and Christmas season through George Frideric Handel’s Messiah: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6, King James Version).
These prophecies were, of course, fulfilled from the moment of the Incarnation:
He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father…And of his kingdom there shall be no end, (Lk 1: 32-33)
Jesus affirmed His royal status in front of Pilate during His Passion; and moments before His Ascension, He proclaimed that “all power is given to me in heaven and in earth” (Mt 28: 18).
Fr. Husslein used this biblical foundation as a launching point to rouse Catholics to the promotion of Christ’s Kingdom on earth. He cited St. Ignatius Loyola in underlining that the founder of his order “bids us to think of self-conquest…[which] would render us fit” for this great task. He proclaimed that Pius XI’s encyclical was a “call to a mighty worldwide crusade, waged with the weapons of the spirit. It is the clarion note of a more virile, more militant, more aggressive Catholicism.”
This “worldwide crusade” seeks to counteract laicism, “the plague which now infects society,” as Pius XI put it in Quas Primas. The Jesuit defined laicism as “the exclusion of modern society of Christ the King;” and outlined its course over recent centuries—”from its denial of the spiritual supremacy of the Church of Christ to the complete turning away of governments from God. The climax was reached in the actual substitution of impiety and blasphemy for religion.” One only needs to go back a few months to the Paris Olympics—with its mocking of the Last Supper by male cross-dressers—to find a recent example of such a substitution, which was broadcast to the entire world.
Fr. Husslein may have boldly promoted a spiritual crusade with his book, but he also briefly hinted (somewhat pessimistically) that it may take Christ’s Second Coming to ultimately defeat modern society’s denial of His sovereignty: “What a pitiable object in the sight of that overwhelming manifestation will be the dark, creeping, earth-bound thing we have called laicism….[It] will dwindle away with all its false pretensions.”
Fr. Husslein unsurprisingly devoted a whole section of his work to the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary:
Mother and Queen! By those two titles we have a twofold claim on her that God respects, since we are both her children and her subjects. With redoubled confidence we can cry to her in our needs of body and of soul.
He also zeroed in on her Immaculate Conception (which the Church glories in with the great feast this month):
Through the decree of the Immaculate Conception, eternally ordained by God, we behold…the glory destined for us and for all mankind. Through it we see the everlasting triumph of the saints in that Kingdom thrown open to us by His victory over sin and death whose very coming was conditioned on the Immaculate Conception.
Fr. Husslein follows his reflection on Mary’s queenship and her creation without original sin—affirmed as a dogma in the 19th century by Blessed Pius IX—with a separate section on another act of that pontiff: the recognition of St. Joseph as the patron of the universal Church.
The Jesuits are longtime promoters of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s onetime confessor was St. Claude La Colombiere, SJ). Fr. Husslein closed his book by connecting this devotion to the truth of Christ’s Kingship—not just in Heaven, but in all human society. He noted that in one of these apparitions to the saint, Jesus declared, “Yes, My Divine Heart shall reign!”
The author also likened the Sacred Heart to Constantine’s purported order for his troops to bear the Christian Chi-Rho insignia into battle:
Before that radiant sign of salvation the ancient idolatry was at last forced back….So we may confidently trust that the new paganism which again has overspread the earth will in these latter days at length be forced to recede before the invincible advance of the standard given into our hands…the Sacred Heart, the emblem of the Love of Christ.
He soon added, “The Love of Christ is needed, as we behold it flaming in that Sacred Heart, to re-awaken the dead bones of a godless and selfish civilization and breathe into them a new life of grace.”
Fr. Husslein provided a starting point for such a revitalization in his final chapter—the consecration of the family to Christ the King and His Sacred Heart:
.…[T]he most important domain of Christ the King [is] the family… . All our efforts to correct society would be a vain task if we failed to consider first the regeneration of the home. To reign over the Christian family, most absolutely and completely, is the great desire of the Heart of Christ.
After outlining the importance of the family consecration, the Jesuit emphasized that “true and deep devotion to the Sacred Heart cannot…be confined to the family circle. It must of necessity become social, national, world-embracing in its zeal.”
Near the end of Quas Primas, Pius XI expressed hope that “nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast [of Christ the King] that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ…his kingly dignity demands that the State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education.”
Thomas Mirus of CatholicCulture.org, recently spotlighted the example of Blessed Karl, the last Habsburg emperor and king of Austria-Hungary, as one such ruler who gave such public honor to Christ—and lamented how such examples are virtually extinct from the world (Mirus was reflecting on a biography of the beatified royal by Charles Coulombe, who also provided a foreword for the new edition of Fr. Husslein’s book):
Surely we can agree that it is better for rulers to humble themselves before God’s altar than for them not to do so….You would think all Catholics could agree on something that seems so obviously good, edifying and conducive to God’s glory. Yet many modern Catholics are deeply uncomfortable with state recognition of the true religion….I suggest that if this is controversial to us, something is seriously missing in our Catholic sensibilities. It really is this simple: to deny that it is ideal for governments and rulers to officially acknowledge Catholic truth is to deny that Christ should rule over every aspect of human life.
A ruler or lawmaker either acknowledges the source of his authority, performing his duties to the state as duties towards God, or he fails to acknowledge it, which is already to rebel against God and cut himself off from the source of his authority….Whether or not our rulers and fellow citizens are prepared to acknowledge the true relation between spiritual and temporal authority—whether we live under godless communism or godless liberal democracy—as Catholics we are bound to affirm it no less than Blessed Karl did. Without this heaven to aim for, we will not even make it to purgatory, politically speaking, meaning that even the little influence we have over politics will be squandered.
“The Reign of Christ” is still relevant nearly 100 years later because “the dead bones of a godless and selfish civilization,” as Fr. Husslein put it, have nearly been frozen solid in a spiritual permafrost under a seemingly endless darkness of laicism. It can only be thawed when all levels of human interactions—from the individual to the family to the municipality to the province to the national and international—acknowledge Christ’s sovereignty; and allow the sunlight of His grace to fill countless hardened hearts.
The Reign of Christ
by Fr. Joseph Husslein, SJ; Foreword by Charles A. Coulombe
XIII Books/Arouca Press, 2024
226 pages
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“C’est le Règne de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ que nous voulons…C’est pourquoi nous voulons aussi la Messe de Pie V. Parce que cette messe est la proclamation de la Royauté de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. La nouvelle messe est une espèce de messe hybride qui n’est plus hiérarchique, qui est démocratique, où l’assemblée prend plus de place que le prêtre, et donc ce n’est pas une messe véritable qui affirme le Royauté de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. Car comment Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ est-il devenu Roi? Il a affirmé sa Royauté par la Croix. “REGNAVIT A LIGNO DEUS.” Jésus-Christ a régné par le bois de la Croix. Car il a vaincu le péché, il a vaincu le démon, il a vaincu mort par sa croix! C’est donc trois victoires magnifiques de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ.”
Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Lille, 29/08/1976
Dear Matthew, your article is commendable. As a convert, I have found gaps in my understanding of Church history, and your work has been valuable in filling some of those voids. Thank you for your enlightening contribution.
Moreover, your article has brought to light a bias I have developed against the Jesuits. Recently, Bishop Barron interviewed Father Joseph Fessio, and they discussed the current state of the Jesuits (the focus of the interview was on Father Fessio’s work at Ignatius Press) particularly mentioning Father Martin. The Jesuits remain a source of confusion for me. There are those, like Father Fessio and many historical figures, whom I deeply admire and who inspire me. Yet, in recent times, there are numerous instances that have led me to question them and doubt them.
“The Jesuits” by Malachi Martin.
Change title to Quas Primas.
Fr Husslein’s fears would extend beyond laicization separating Church from State in consideration that we’re in the throes of a Church self identification with the secular State. Although essayist Balan notes Christ the King as the least remembered Church event, its forgetfulness during this pontificate is its enduring signature.
Matthew Balan misses the event that triggered Pope Pius XI to write Quas Primas Dec 11 1925. That year on Jan 3 1925 Benito Mussolini addressed the Italian parliament and declared himself supreme dictator of Italy.
Mussolini was notable as an anticlerical fascist in his writings and his incitement of violence against priests, Catholic associations. Pius wrote: “When we pay honor to the princely dignity of Christ, men will doubtless be reminded that the Church, founded by Christ as a perfect society, has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the state” (Quas Primas 31).
It wasn’t until the Lateran Treaty 1929 [Concordat] that the Fascists recognized the Catholic faith as Italy’s state religion. Today we’ve arrived at a form of concordat between Church and State, the reverse of that arranged in 1929. Whereas now it is the Church that has recognized the secular State as a perfect society, that has a natural and inalienable right to perfect freedom and immunity from the power of the Church.
‘ The pontiff [Pius XI] hoped that “the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism [or laicism] has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them.” ‘
About the diminishing kingship of Christ, maybe some modern theologians are embarrassed, first, by the underlying notion of “kingship.” Part of the great meltdown within Modernity is what Thomas Molnar identifies as “The Decline of the Intellectual” (1961/Arlington House 1973).
As creatures of the Renaissance and reason displacing faith, “intellectuals” (even some in red hats) have fallen into their hood-ornament role of progressively just moving things along—their “central role in the spreading of ideologies.” Especially including the post-World War I European errors—fascism, communism, socialism– resisted by Pope Pius XI when he reaffirmed Christ as “the king of the Universe”.
Today, how to re-Cognize Christ, when so-called intellectuals of all stripes and colored banners debunk any kind of hierarchy, and have even forgotten that there is a coherent “universe”?
In a footnote, Molnar cites Chesterton:
“It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all…In so far as religion is gone, reason is going [!]. For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved. And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority [“kingship!”] we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum” (Orthodoxy).
SUMMARY: Synodal Study Group #9, quo vadis? …with the progressive task of writing on water with : “[t]heological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of controversial [meaning controverted?] doctrinal, pastoral, and ethical issues”?
Recommend Douglas Farrow’s latest on this topic:
https://open.substack.com/pub/douglasfarrow/p/christ-the-king?r=2jt7e&utm_medium=ios