Quas primas

[1] Quas primas followed Pius's initial encyclical, Ubi arcano Dei consilio, which he referred to in his opening statement: ...manifold evils in the world were due to the fact that the majority of men had thrust Jesus Christ and his holy law out of their lives; that these had no place either in private affairs or in politics: and we said further, that as long as individuals and states refused to submit to the rule of our Savior, there would be no really hopeful prospect of a lasting peace among nations.

[3] Quas primas established the Feast of Christ the King,[4] which was Pope Pius XI's response to the world's increasing secularization and nationalism.

[5] In 1925 the Pope asked the French Dominican priest Édouard Hugon, professor of philosophy and theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum, to work on Quas primas.

Invoking an earlier encyclical Annum sacrum of Pope Leo XIII, Pius XI suggested that the Kingdom of Christ embraces the whole mankind.

Pius explained that by virtue of Christ’s claim to kingship as creator and redeemer, societies as well as individuals owe him obligations as king.