Qualla: Monument to Christ the King

Monument to Christ the King: Introduction

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GeniMusty7, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the Monument to Christ the King was inaugurated on October 17, 1931, the celebrations lasted nine days. Eleven committees organized everything from music to street decorations. A Passion play ran for four nights at St. Patrick's School, introducing microphones and loudspeakers to the venue for the first time. Jamshed Nusserwanjee Mehta, the Parsi president of Karachi's Municipal Corporation, led a large contingent of non-Catholics in a two-mile-long procession. Fireworks closed the festivities. The monument that inspired all this was 54 feet of white Carrara marble, and it has stood on Shahrah-e-Iraq ever since.

Image: GeniMusty7 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Monument to Christ the King: From Feast Day to Foundation Stone

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit TANK RAIDER, CC BY-SA 3.0. The monument's story begins in 1925, when Pope Pius XI established the Feast of Christ the King. Vincent Gimenez, the Jesuit parish priest of St. Patrick's in Karachi's Saddar Town, introduced the first Christ the King procession through the streets in October 1926. The following...

Image: TANK RAIDER | CC BY-SA 3.0

Monument to Christ the King: Carrara Marble via Coutinho

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit TANK RAIDER, CC BY-SA 3.0. The marble for the monument was imported from Carrara, Italy, shipped to Karachi through Anthony Coutinho and Company, the same firm that had been handling burial services at Gora Qabaristan since 1885. The statue of Christ the King was a gift from Major Quadros of Cincinnatus To...

Image: TANK RAIDER | CC BY-SA 3.0

Monument to Christ the King: Processions Silenced

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Karachi_St._Patricks_Cathedral.jpg: Swerveut at English Wikipedia derivative work: Rabanus Flavus (talk), Public domain. For decades after its inauguration, the Feast of Christ the King brought an annual procession from St. Patrick's Cathedral through Saddar, a quarter-mile column of Catholic worshipers winding through Karachi's busiest commercial district. The procession was discontinued in the mi...

Image: Karachi_St._Patricks_Cathedral.jpg: Swerveut at English Wikipedia derivative work: Rabanus Flavus (talk) | Public domain

Monument to Christ the King: Saved at Eighty-Two

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit H.Sadiq, CC BY-SA 3.0. In September 2011, a fundraising drive sought 10 million rupees to save the monument. The Archbishop Emeritus of Karachi formed a restoration committee in 2012, appointing Menin Rodrigues as Project Head and Roland deSouza as Technical Coordinator. NED University of Engineering a...

Image: H.Sadiq | CC BY-SA 3.0