This year’s celebration of the feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of All Creation, is the hundredth since it was established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI through the encyclical Quas Primas. The Pope decreed that this feast was to be celebrated throughout the whole world, every year, on the last Sunday of October, that is, the Sunday before the feast of All Saints. The Pope also ordered that, on this day each year, Christians should renew their consecration — and that of the whole world — to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
This feast was instituted at a time of turmoil across the world, sometimes as a consequence of the rejection of faith, both on a personal level and on a collective one. The context of the post-First World War, apart from the absence of lasting peace among peoples, was also marked by an accelerated process of secularisation—at times aggressive and harsh—which paved the way for extreme ideologies hostile to the ecclesial institution and which even led to an assault on the dignity of every human being, realities that degenerated and brought about yet another global conflict.
Against this political background, Pope Pius XI felt the need to emphasise strongly the sovereignty of Christ over the whole world and to remind all that no authority could be separated from God.