Pius XI's message to the cultural and political crisis of our time
What does this have to do with international politics? It certainly does. As you can read, this dimension cannot be excluded from human life. Faith—or its rejection—always shapes a vision of humanity, society, and therefore also of politics.
This Sunday we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. Every year, the Catholic Church celebrates the solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, established exactly a century ago by Pope Pius XI: a powerful and timely reminder of the kingship of Christ as the foundation of all true peace and justice.
In the encyclical Quas Primas (11 December 1925), Pius XI explained the reasons for this celebration with words of extraordinary lucidity:
In the first Encyclical that We addressed to the bishops of the world at the beginning of Our Pontificate, We sought the inner cause of the calamities with which humanity, oppressed, struggles before Our eyes. Now, We recall, We openly proclaimed two things: one, that this spread of evils throughout the universe stemmed from the fact that the majority of men had excluded Jesus Christ and His most holy law from the habits of their individual, family, and public lives; the other, that there could never be a firm hope of lasting peace among peoples as long as individuals and nations refused to recognize and proclaim the sovereignty of Our Savior. Therefore, after affirming that the peace of Christ must be sought through the kingdom of Christ, We declared Our intention to work for it with all Our strength; for the kingdom of Christ, We said, because, to restore and consolidate peace, We saw no more effective means than to restore the sovereignty of Our Lord.
Encyclical on the Kingship of Jesus Christ : Quas Primas , by Pope Pius XI — given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on 11 December in the Holy Year 1925, the fourth of his Pontificate.
A century later, these words sound more prophetic than ever. The cultural and political crisis of the West stems precisely from what Pius XI denounced: the expulsion of Christ—and therefore of every transcendent reference—from public life. In the name of a freedom without truth, the very sense of the common good has dissolved. States claim to be "neutral," but they become instruments of new ideologies that deny the nature of man and community.
Putting Christ back at the center is not a devotional gesture, but an act of realism: recognizing that without a higher principle of truth and justice, peace between peoples becomes a rhetorical illusion. Pius XI recalled this in 1925; today, after wars, moral crises, and civil disarray, that warning remains the forgotten foundation of all true politics.
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