U.S. bishops announce Christ the King novena, urge prayers for ‘freedom of the Church’

Christ the King at St Etheldreda’s, London. / Credit: Lawrence OP via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

CNA Staff, Nov 3, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The Bishops’ Committee for Religious Freedom, an office of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), is encouraging the faithful to participate in a novena ahead of the feast of Christ the King, which will be celebrated on Nov. 24 this year.

The Christ the King novena will start on Friday, Nov. 15, and end on Saturday, Nov. 23.

The bishops have asked the faithful to offer their prayers to Christ the King “for the freedom of the Church.”

Some of the prayer intentions included in the novena are for people of faith to gather in houses of worship without fear, that God give hope and courage to people who live in fear of persecution, for God to protect migrants and refugees, and that business leaders be free to promote a culture of life in their workplaces, among others.

The novena consists of a dedicated intention for each day, followed by an Our Father, Hail Mary, the Glory Be, and a prayer to Christ the King.

In 2012, the bishops issued a document titled “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: A Statement on Religious Liberty” where they recommended that the solemnity of Christ the King “be a day specifically employed by bishops and priests to preach about religious liberty, both here and abroad,” as it is a feast “born out of resistance to totalitarian incursions against religious liberty.”

“To all our fellow Catholics, we urge an intensification of your prayers and fasting for a new birth of freedom in our beloved country,” the document states.

Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in 1925 with his encyclical Quas Primas (“In the First”) to respond to growing secularism and atheism. He recognized that trying to push God out of the public sphere would result in continuing discord among people and nations.

In his encyclical, the pope says that Jesus “is [the] very truth, and it is from him that truth must be obediently received by all mankind.”

The encyclical states: “He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the apostle Paul, ‘as instruments of justice unto God.’”

The Christ the King novena can be found here.