Bl.Emperor Charles of Austria

Today is the appointed feast day for Bl. Charles of Austria, a beatus and monarch about whom I have posted on several occasions in the past, and to whom I have a particular devotion.

Over recent days I have been praying the novena for his canonization from the Emperor Charles League of Prayer. The website for the cause of the Empress can be seen at Empress Zita cause.

Bl. Charles of Austria

Image: Wikipedia

Looking around on the internet I found some other articles about the Emperor which may be of interest. The first is by Gary Potter from 2004, and is quite lengthy, but worth looking at, and can be viewed here.

 

The others are by the well known blogger Andrew Cusack. From 2010 there is this article. There is also a series of linked posts about Bl. Charles which can be seen here,  and one about the introduction of the cause of the Empress Zita which can be read here.

The Emperor and EmpressImage: glencoe.mcgrawhill.co

 

I also found an illustrated online article about the Emperor's tomb on Madeira which gives the background to his exile and death there. It can be read here.

  

Imperial monogram of the Empeor Charles IImage: WikipediaMay the Blessed Emperor Charles continue to intercede for the peoples of his ancestral realms.

Death of Bl. Emperor Charles 1922

Today is the ninetieth anniversary of the death in exile in Madeira of the Bl. Emperor Charles of Austria in 1922. He was not yet 35 and was worn out by exile, illness and poverty, as well as concern for his peoples. His body still lies in the church he wished to be buried in on the island. When as part of his beatification process his tomb was opened his body was found to be incorrupt.

The Emperor on his deathbed

Image: ritadicascia.blogspot

As regular readers will be aware he is a monarch, and now also a beatus, in whom I have a strong interest. There is more about him, and about an exhibition about him in Vienna on the website of the Emperor Charles League of Prayer , and there is also that for the cause of his consort at
the Empress Zita cause.

Their life stories are deeply moving, lives of faith and dedication both to their Christian calling and that to the service of the peoples and life of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. It is story of personal faithfulness and of loss, bereavement and sorrow, both personal and national, or perhaps in the case of the Habsburg monarchy, one should write supra-national.

Coronation in Budapest

Today is the 95th anniversary of the coronation of the Bl. Emperor Charles as King Charles IV of Hungary in 1916. The fact that he had received this sacramental was of enormous spiritual significance to the King and his Queen Zita, and why he refused to renounce his rights in 1921.

The ceremony, central to the traditional Hungarian concept of kingship, was both deemed to be a constitutional requirement and also. it seem, as a means of binding the new King, who had succeeded to the throne in late November, to the existing balance of political pwer within the realm by the Prime Minister, Count Tisza.

There is an account of the preparations for the coronation in Miklos Banffy's memoir The Phoenix Land and there is a detailed description of the day, set within the action of a sprawling novel about a Magyar aristocratic family, in Lajos Zilahy's The Dukays.

The King taking the Coronation oath

The King on horseback upon the hill composed of soil from every county in Hungary.
This part of the ceremonial involved the King riding up the hill and brandishing his sword to the four points of the compass to symbolise his defence of the frontiers of the kingdom - indeed the oath speaks of extending them.

King Charles IV, Queen Zita and Crown Prince Otto.
The King died in 1922, Queen Zita in 1989 and Otto in 2011.

King Charles IV wearing the Holy Crown
and mantle of St Stephen and holding the sceptre.

Images: The Emperor Charles League of Prayer

Bl. Emperor Charles

Today is the centenary of the wedding of the Archduke Charles to Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma, the future Emperor Charles and Empress Zita, and now the day appointed as that of his commemoration as a beatus.

The future Empress and Empress on their wedding day October 21 1911

The Emperor Francis Joseph with the Archduke and Archduchess and other family members on the balcony at the Villa Schwarzau.
Archduke Francis Ferdinand can be seen to the rear on the left.

In addition to the continuing cause for the Emperor's canonisation the cause of the Empress has also been introduced and the websites for these can be found at Emperor Charles League of Prayer and at Empress Zita cause.

It is worth reflecting that no other head of state from the twentieth century has been raised to the altars of the church, and one has to go back along way to find one, even canonizations centuries later such as that of the thirteenth century King Ferdinand III of Castile in 1671, let alone one within the lifetime of their children.

The story of the Empress and Empress is a tragedy not only in political and international terms for their peoples, but also a personal one, the piecemeal wearing down of a high-minded, devout, decent young man, devoted husband and father leading to a premature death at the age of 34. What redeems it is his personal holiness, as set out in the readings of the Novena for his cause which I have been saying, or in the various biographies of him.

Images from the Emperor Charles League of Prayer

Emperor Charles of Austria obit

It was on April 1st 1922 that the Emperor Charles of Austria - now venerated as the Bl. Emperor Charles - died in exile in Madeira.

A memorial card for the Emperor from 1922

The website of the Emperor Charles League of Prayer has a detailed account of the Emperor-King's last months and of how, as a devout Catholic with a deep sense of obligation to and for the people over whom he was called to rule, he prepared himself and his family for his early death - he was only 34. It can be read on the site or here.

His death was a personal tragedy, a loss to his immediate family and to his wider dynasty and encapsulates the disastrous consequences of the break up of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918. His beatification in 2004 recognised not only his own personal holiness of life but also his attempts to end the war in 1917. Had that been possible the positive benefits that would doubtless have ensued are incalulable.

May the Bl. Emperor Charles pray for the lands and peoples of the Habsburg empire, for the restoration of the Christian ordering of European society and for the peace of the world.