Why Not the Last Sunday of the Year?

Donald P. Goodman III

25 October 2025

The Novel Rite puts the feast of Christ the King (renamed the feast of Christ, “King of All Things”) on the last Sunday per annum, or what is rather ridiculously translated as “Ordinary Time”. But this was an innovation of 1970; originally the feast was on the last Sunday of October, as placed there by the originator of the feast, Pope Pius XI. Why didn't he pick the last Sunday of the liturgical year? Let's have a look.

In other words, Pope Pius XI considered the very end of the liturgical year for the feast, and consciously and deliberately rejected it as inappropriate.

Part of the problem is a mistranslation of the encyclical establishing this feast, Quas Primas, which on the Vatican's website does a very bad job rendering the Latin at a very critical point. That document has the Pope arguing, “The last Sunday of October seemed the most convenient of all for this purpose, because it is at the end of the liturgical year” (emphasis added; Vatican paragraph number 29). So it seems, from this, that the last Sunday of October was chosen almost as a mistake; perhaps the last Sunday before Advent, the end of the liturgical year, is what the Pope was aiming for. Could this be true?

No, it's not. The actual Latin of the document says:

Visus autem est ad celebrationem longe aptior, quam reliqui, postremus mensis Octobris dominicus dies, quo fere cursus anni liturgici clauditur.

The English is a fine, if very loose, translation of this, except that it ignores the critical word fere, which means “almost” or “nearly”. That is, a better translation (which you will find in our own translation of Quas Primas) would be as follows:

And it was seen far more appropriate for this celebration to be on the last Sunday of October, by which time the course of the liturgical year is nearly closed.

In other words, Pope Pius XI wanted something near, not at, the end of the liturgical year. He considered the very end of the liturgical year for the feast, and consciously and deliberately rejected it as inappropriate.

So why did he place the feast of the last Sunday of October? To summarize:

1. It's immediately prior to the feast of All Saints, so that as we proceed through the liturgical year we find first Christ the King, then the feast of all His most loyal soldiers, the saints.
2. It's near the end of the liturgical year, so it serves as a crown on the many other mysteries of the life of Christ celebrated throughout the year.
3. It is near, but not at, the end of the liturgical year, to emphasize the fact that Christ's Kingship is not eschatological (that is, relegated to the end of time), but in fact right here and now with us.

So those of us who continue to celebrate this great feast of Christ the King on the last Sunday of October, as Pius XI intended, are on very strong ground.

Christus vincit! Christus regnat! Christus imperat!