In the light of the Feast of the Christ the King, CAFOD Theological Advisor and CCSTP Steering Group member Francis Stewart, explores what kind of king we serve and how this understanding can help us approach the rise of Christan Nationalism.
In the Jubilee year 1925, Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King. The encyclical Quas Primas stated that the title of king could be applied to Christ not just in a metaphorical sense but in a “strict and proper sense too” (QP, 7).
The pope provides a long list of royal references to Christ. He mentions prophecies like that of Isaiah’s of the child born to us, “Wonderful Counsellor, God the mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6) and visions like that of St John in the book of Revelations, of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, whom the Father has appointed heir of all things (QP, 9-11). Yet this feast was not proclaimed only in recognition of the scriptural and popular sense of Christ as King.
The backdrop, in the wake of the recently ended First World War, was one of “nations cut off from God, stirring up strife and discord and hurrying along the road to ruin and death.” (QP, 4) Looking to Christ the King was part of a quest for peace in an era of political upheaval and nationalism, a prescient search – as demonstrated by the Second World War and today’s rise of Christian Nationalism. However, the feast also tells us something about the Church’s own changing self-understanding and relationship with political authorities.
The Vatican and the powers
In 1870, the First Vatican Council, aiming to clarify Catholic doctrine in the face of modern thought, was adjourned whilst Italian forces captured Rome. The loss of the papal states to a unified Italy marked the beginning of the end of the Vatican’s dream of restoring an explicitly Catholic political order in Europe, one that would normally be constituted by Catholic monarchies. In 1929, the Lateran treaty was signed reducing the Church’s temporal power to the tiny city-state that we know today as Vatican City.
The feast of Christ the King was a key moment in the process of the Vatican accepting the end of feudal-style relationships with governments of countries. It would be wrong to understand this as a privatisation of political theology, though, as if Christ could only be king of our hearts. It was a shift in the style of the Church’s political engagement - away from princes and monarchies. Initially, at the time this shift was towards the press (in light of greater literacy) and associative life within local communities (Catholic groups like women’s leagues, Christian trade unions and youth groups) but, over time, would also forge different relationships with the civil powers and governments via organisations such as the United Nations, diplomacy, national and global movements for independence and emancipation (1).
There is a paradox about the Church’s loss of direct worldly political power in Italy and direct influence on explicitly Catholic governments everywhere. What was perceived as a humiliation at the time now appears to be a movement of the Holy Spirit. The loss enabled the Church to gain a renewed freedom, a freedom to teach and to comment in striking and pointed ways, in particular through the tradition of social doctrine that began with Rerum Novarum, the 1891 encyclical on the condition of the workers.
Leo XIII is remembered for his grasp of industrial misery and the economic aspect of “the social question”. Pius XI issued his own social encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, in 1931, extending Leo’s insights and also exploring the question of what political forms might enable a response to the realities unfolding through the 20th century (including a detailed consideration of Italian Fascism). The problem of what makes a political order Christian no longer had the seemingly neat solution of trusting Magisterium-friendly Catholic monarchs.
The peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ
The proclamation of the feast of Christ the King wasn’t just about the pope working out his politics. The rubble of the First World War laid bare a wounded world searching for a horizon beyond the flying colours of increasingly aggressive nationalisms across Europe. Pius XI saw the need to infuse in the faithful a desire for peace deeper than formal agreements, as he put it in the encyclical from 1922, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio:
“Peace indeed was signed in solemn conclave between the belligerents of the late War. This peace, however, was only written into treaties. It was not received into the hearts of men, who still cherish the desire to fight one another and to continue to menace in a most serious manner the quiet and stability of civil society.” (Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, 20)
We “must look for the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ” (QP, 1), said Pius, not settling for treaties and truces. Within the context of simmering geopolitical tensions, the recognition of Christ as King points people to one allegiance above all others, someone we must answer to before any other ‘king’.
It is no surprise that the pope saw the kingship of Christ as proclaimed by the Church as the one rule which could purify and pacify worldly ambitions and attachments to nation, land, wealth and power, ambitions that can so easily degenerate to the point of war.
Catholicism and nationalisms in 1925 and 2025
If we have explored something of the political relevance of the feast of Christ the King 100 years ago, it’s quite a different task to transpose that into our own context. What can we find in the political orientation of Christ the King for the early 20th century that may speak to us a century later?
One of the things that most appalled the Vatican about the rise of the various nationalisms (most notably in the French Revolution, the Italian Risorgimento or the German Kulturkampf) was the way allegiance to the nation-state served to dissolve or homogenise other forms of association and fraternity. The nation was to have one law, one language, one unified history. There would be no sites of belonging – whether they be local dialects, religious vows, membership of lay associations – that were under foreign influence or simply were not aligned in their purpose and thinking with the nation’s good – as understood by its leaders.
Russel Hittinger (2) persuasively argues that this overriding desire for national unity, explains why the French Revolutionary government was so ruthless with religious orders and congregations – they offered a fraternity other than that of the new republican nation-state. The sorts of fraternity found in Catholic associative and religious life were answerable finally to Christ the King over and above any government. As such, they were counter-cultural to any homogenising national programme.
Setting aside the question of how this worked politically in real terms one hundred years ago, I wonder if there is a paradox here that can help us navigate the question of nationalism today. An ultimate allegiance that is ‘above’ the nation, mediated by the Church, can help to safeguard the diversity of groupings ‘under’ the nation, against any homogenising unity. Christ the King, though it addresses Christ as our absolute ruler, could be one of the most anti-authoritarian Catholic feasts!
What kind of kingdom is Christ’s?
The anti-authoritarian orientation of Christ the King depends upon the Church’s fidelity to the distinctly unworldly qualities of Christ’s kingdom:
“It demands of its subjects a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly things, and a spirit of gentleness. They must hunger and thirst after justice, and more than this, they must deny themselves and carry the cross.” (QP, 15)
In other words, life in Christ’s kingdom is modelled on its King, whose ministry was very disappointing to the zealots among his own people. They wanted him to impose his rule through a revolution against the Romans:
“When the populace thronged around him and would have acclaimed him King, he shrank from the honour and sought safety in flight. Before the Roman magistrate he declared that his kingdom was not of this world.” (QP, 15).
Yet, as suggested in the second part of Pius’ quote, this King also confounds the expectations of pagan rulers. The way Christ’s otherworldly kingdom elides both the Jewish zealots and their pagan overlords in the Gospels is modelled perfectly in his answer to the question about paying taxes “Give to Caesar what belong to Caesar, but give to God what belongs to God”(Mark 12: 17).
In that regard, it is interesting to note how, not only before Pilate, but in other parts of the Gospels that Jesus describes his kingdom not primarily in positive terms but by contrasts with other kingdoms, nations and allegiances. His disciples are instructed not to be like “all the nations of the world” who worry about what they will eat and drink, but rather “seek God’s kingdom and these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6: 25-34). They are told not to be like the “kings of the Gentiles” who lord it over each other to win favours, but instead to serve, as he showed them at the washing of the feet (Luke 22: 25, John 13: 12-18).
Focusing on these Gospel passages, it seems like the prophets’ distrust of kings is transposed into the polity Jesus models for his kingdom. Take for example, Samuel’s warning to the elders of Israel when they tell him to “give us a king to judge us”:
“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. […] He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.” (1 Samuel 8: 11-18).
Jesus’ kingship models the opposite pattern to that described by Samuel. He deflects pleas for favours and defuses rivalries among his followers (Luke 22: 24-30). Rather than accruing land or possessions for security or to pay for loyalty, he invites the disciples to not worry about these things, and to consider the lilies that neither toil nor spin but trust in the Father (Matthew 6: 25-34). Rather than demand taxes from the poor, he takes the meagre offerings of the poor to multiply them into a feast (Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6: 31-44, Luke 9: 12-17, John 6: 1-14).
In Christ’s kingdom there is abundance, rooted in complete trust in the Father. There is enough food to go round, even the sparrows aren’t forgotten (Matthew 6: 26). There are enough rooms in the Father’s house (John 14: 2). There are enough seats at the table (and the best seats are reserved for the poor – Mark 12: 13, Luke 14:13). There is enough time to work out disputes person-to-person, and to forgive – seventy-seven times over (Matthew 18: 15-25).
Engaging Christian Nationalism
In our fallen world, as creatures existing in time, there is scarcity, there are needs and interests to prioritise within bordered communities. We do worry “like all the nations of the world” about what we will eat and what we will drink. These realities, and the unjust or disordered navigation of these realities, surely fuel the attraction of nationalistic movements, some of which are reaching for the Christian cross.
Nevertheless, as Christians who are members of the Body of Christ the King, we are obliged to interrupt when people want to forge national bonds on the premise of scarcity, fear, and rivalry. Isn’t the Eucharist, a foretaste of the kingdom, also an interruption of scarcity with abundance, of fear with hope, and of rivalry with the self-gift of total love? There are lots of “there is no free lunch” clubs starting up, and they all look the same to me, but the people who are signing up need to be invited to the love feast.
When Pius described how heroic patriotism could be debased into extreme nationalism, he took a metaphor from St Augustine:
“Perhaps the advantages to one's family, city, or nation obtained in some such way as this may well appear to be a wonderful and great victory (this thought has been already expressed by St. Augustine), but in the end it turns out to be a very shallow thing, something rather to inspire us with the most fearful apprehensions of approaching ruin. "It is a happiness which appears beautiful but is brittle as glass. We must ever be on guard lest with horror we see it broken into a thousand pieces at the first touch." (Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, 26, quoting St. Augustine de Civitate Dei, Book iv, Chap. 3)
As well as an allegiance beyond all others, Christ the King also offers us a horizon beyond the divisions and woes we have to reckon with in the world: a horizon of abundance, an invitation to trust in the Father.
Looking to this horizon, we can be passionately attached to family, place, and country. We can search for belonging, security and roots. These loyalties and desires need not be signs of anxious fragility, brittle as glass and overshadowed by apprehensions of approaching ruin. They can be generous energies of solidarity and peace-making. It is up to those of us who are Christians to graft these desires onto the true vine, through our spirit of detachment and gentleness, through our hunger and thirst after justice, through denying ourselves and carrying the cross.
Footnotes:
(1) I am grateful to the guidance and editing of Edward Hadas and Anna Rowlands for this description of 19th century Vatican history and its implications for Catholic political theology.
References:
Pope Pius XI, 1925, Quas Primas, On the Feast of Christ the King. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_11121925_quas-primas.html
Pope Pius XI, 1922, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, On the Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19221223_ubi-arcano-dei-consilio.html
Pope Leo XIII, 1891, Rerum Novarum, On Capital and Labour. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html
Pope Pius XI, 1931, Quadragesimo Anno, On Reconstruction of the Social Order. https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno.html
Russel Hittinger, 2021, ‘Sites of Human Joy: The True Purpose of Intermediate Societies’, Church Life Journal: A journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life. https://churchlifejournal.nd.edu/articles/sites-of-human-joy-the-true-purpose-of-intermediate-societies/