November 2026 Letter from the Provost

Perhaps kingship is something that modern people tend to associate with a bygone age. If His Majesty the King dares to comment on the issues of the day, he is likely to be accused in some quarters of “unconstitutional” behaviour. Modern monarchs are expected to be seen but not heard. But the feast of Christ the King, which we celebrate this month, is actually quite a modern feast; it was only instituted in the last century. When Pope Pius XI made a solemn declaration of the universal sovereignty of Jesus Christ in 1925, he was making a counter-cultural statement. He was insisting on the sovereign rights of Almighty God at a time when much of the world was busy banishing God from public life.

The early twentieth century was a period of severe crisis for Christian civilisation. It was an age in which godless ideologies, emboldened since the French Revolution, were gaining ground in east and west. Socialism, in its Marxist and nationalist forms, was extending a new reign of the anti-Christ on a scale not seen since the conversion of Europe to Christianity.

And it was in response to this that Pope Pius XI established this feast – to remind us that there are laws which God has written into nature itself; and that we are all answerable to Jesus Christ, who will come to judge the living and the dead. He will judge each one of us individually in a “particular judgment” at the moment of our death. These individual judgements will be ratified and proclaimed universally at the Final Judgment on the last day, when the bodies of the dead will be raised up from the graves to join either the souls of the saved in Heaven or the damned in hell.

In establishing this feast of Christ the King, Pope Pius XI was reminding us that Christianity is not supposed to be something purely individualistic and private. If rulers, governments, and societies are to be counted as just and civilised, then they must submit themselves to the rule of the Creator, from whom all authority and sovereignty derives.

There have of course been times and places in which this has been more or less achieved – where the divine laws inscribed in human nature have been enshrined in the laws of the land. This has tended to make living the Christian life considerably easier. In Europe today however we inhabit a culture that is distancing itself ever further from its Christian foundations. A society that condones and even promotes the crimes of abortion and euthanasia is a society in open rebellion against Almighty God.

This can make our daily existence rather challenging. In an age obsessed with the rights of minorities, we Christians, and especially Catholics, can be made to feel like the one group that has no rights. Health workers who refuse to participate in the murder of innocent children in abortion may face unemployment. In this country some years ago all of our Catholic adoption agencies were forced to close because of their commitment to Catholic teaching on the nature of marriage.

But we are not to be crushed by this. We take heart in the knowledge that earthly kingdoms come and go. The Roman Empire into which Christianity was born unleashed all the furies of hell against the Church. By the time Christianity became the official religion, the Empire was already on the brink of dissolution. Christ’s Kingship survived the collapse of that mighty civilisation, and itself formed the culture that would flourish in the Ages of Faith. And we have a divine promise that Our Lord will never be dislodged from His throne, despite the machinations of man and the devil. Whatever discrimination, vilification, and even persecution we might have to endure now for professing and living our faith, we know that the reward is an incorruptible Crown in heaven. We are not called to success in worldly terms; our vocation is faithfulness to the Gospel.

On the spiritual level, the current turmoil can even help us. It leaves us with little room for doubt that the things of this world this world are so transitory and fragile. It prevents us from becoming complacent, and complacency is death to the soul. It warns us not to become attached to worldly honours and possessions. Such attachment stunts our spiritual growth.

One day this world will end. We do not know when. In the meantime, Christ will never abandon His Bride, the One True Catholic Church. And when the history of this earthly realm does reach its denouement, the Bride of Christ will be there to meet the King Who arrives in power and majesty. Meanwhile, it is our job to beautify the garments of the Bride of Christ with our faith, hope and, above all, charity, so that by God’s grace we may live forever in glory with the King of Kings in Heaven.

Father Julian Large