The Feast of Christ the King will be observed in a celebration of Solemn Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street in New Haven, on Sunday, 25 October, at 2:00 pm. Father Richard Cipolla, Pastor emeritus of St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk will be the celebrant and homilist, and Father Robert Turner, Pastor of St. Ambrose Parish, North Branford, will be the Deacon. Members of the Schola Cantorum of the Saint Gregory Society will sing the Gregorian chant and polyphony for the service.

Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in his Encyclical Letter of Quas primas of 1925. In this letter showed how laïcism and secularism, by organizing society without any reference to God, lead to the apostasy of the masses and the ruin of society because of their complete denial of Christ’s Kingship, which is one of the greatest heresies of our time. The Pope proposed this feast as an annual liturgical assertion of Christ’s divine right of Kingship as an effective means of combating this pernicious heresy.

By its position on the last Sunday in October, towards the end of the Liturgical Year and just before the All Saints Day, the feast of Christ the King comes at the climax of the celebration of all Christ’s mysteries and a kind of earthly anticipation of his everlasting reign over the elect in the glory of heaven.

Music for the liturgy will include William Byrd’s “Mass for Three Voices” and the Mass proper for the feast of Christ the King (“Dignus est agnus”), and organ music.