The encyclical on the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary, given to crown the Marian Year kept for the centenary of the definition of the Immaculate Conception. Pius XII traces the title of Queen through Scripture, the Fathers, the liturgy and Christian art, and explains its foundation: Mary is Queen because she is the Mother of the Son of God and King, and because she was associated with him as the new Eve in the work of redemption — a queenship of grace and of intercession, wholly derived from and subordinate to the kingship of Christ, exercised in mercy for the members of his body. By this letter the Pope decreed the liturgical feast of the Queenship of Mary, to be kept each year throughout the world, and asked that the consecration of the human race to the Immaculate Heart of Mary be renewed on the same day. In the reformed calendar the memorial is kept on 22 August, the octave day of the Assumption.