Blessed Charles of Austria by Charles A. Coulombe

(Gastonia, NC: Tan Books, 2020), 268

Notes


Contents


Foreword

by Archduke Eduard Karl von Habsburg

  • "The most astounding fact is that Emperor Karl excelled in all three areas [as a soldier, politician, and family man]. 'Excelling' does not mean that he was successful in his endeavors but rather that he approached all of his roles with the best intent and carried out his duties under the influence of an guided by religious values. One of his guidelines was to seek God's will in all and everything he was undertaking and to strive to fulfill it in the best possible way." (ix-x)
  • "He was the only head of state in the First World War who had firsthand knowledge of what soldiers had to go through when they were sent to war." (x)
  • "His Manifesto to my peoples is clear proof that he saw the principle of subsidiarity as a leitmotif for a supranational order." (xi)
  • "From his life, we can learn that it is not necessarily the results or the achievements that count but the will to try to do what is right. And if the rewards don't come immediately, there is not need for despair; if we live rightly, we can trust in God's promise that they will come later in the form of heavenly blessings." (xi-xii)

Book One: The Inheritance

Chapter 1: The Imperial Idea

  • The Persians invented the first "empire" ruled through local kings (4)
  • Theodosius' Edict of Thessalonica referred to "Catholic Christians" (13)
  • Church and state from The Holy Roman Empire: "The Pope, as God's vicar in matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life; the Emperor, as vicar in matters temporal, must so control them in their dealings with one another that they may be able to pursue undisturbed the spiritual life, and thereby attain the same supreme and common end of everlasting happiness. In the view of this object his chief duty is to maintain peace in the world..." (20)

Chapter 2: Sacred Monarchy

  • "Monarchies have never been secular." (28)

Chapter 3: A Tale of Two Houses

  • Summary: a History of the Habsburgs

Chapter 4: Pietas Austriaca

  • Austrian piety, with its basis in the coronation as a semi-sacramental anointing (56), which "gave them a responsibility before God not only for their people's bodies but for their souls" (58)
  • Marian devotion is a keynote of the Pietas Austriaca, centered on the shrine of Mariazelle, the Great Mother of Austria. Also the weeping icon now in St. Stephen's Cathedral (62).

Book Two: Imperial Lives in Tandem

Chapter 5: Birth and Education of a Prince

  • Charles had daily lessons in Hungarian from a tutor starting at age 6 or 9 until high school, then Magyar (74)
  • "When Charles was seven, his education began in earnest. In addition to Father Tormássy, the young archduke was given a heavy daily academic load: modern languages, his-tory, geography, the classics, and religion were the bulk of it all, with one Count George Wallis as overall tutor." (76)

Chapter 6: To Be a Soldier

  • "One cannot overestimate the influence of the vote of Chivalry in Charles’s life." (86)
  • Thomas Aquinas on the virtue of high-mindedness: "to think great things about oneself, and, trusting in God, to do great things." (87)
  • When, two years after the diamond jubilee, ex-president Theodore Roosevelt visited Vienna and met with the old monarch, the former chief executive asked him what he thought his role was. Franz Josef ruefully answered, "Protecting my people from their politicians." (92)

Chapter 7: A Princess Enters

  • "She is everything to me!" (113)
  • The author quotes four prophecies of Franz Ferdinand's murder. (121)

Chapter 8: Heir to a War

  • "Those who want war have no idea what war is." (127)
  • "From highest chiefs of staff to lowest street thugs, not a one had any idea of the horrors of modern warfare. They might have had they looked more closely at the bloody civil war in the United States a half century before. From this conflict had emerged ironclads, submarines, trench warfare, targeting civilian populations to weaken the war effort, and the demand for unconditional surrender. Add fifty years' worth of advances in military technology into that cauldron and you would have a perfect witches brew of slaughter." (131)
  • Two of Zita’s brothers fought for France while two fought for Austria in WWI. (133)
  • "I leave with a heavy heart because when this war is over, whatever happens in it, this Austria-Hungary that I know and love will no longer exist." (134)

Chapter 9: A King Is Crowned

  • "At St. Stephan's Cathedral, the cardinal archbishop of Vienna offered the Requiem Mass, assisted by four other cardinals, ten bishops, and forty-eight priests." (146)

Chapter 10: The Peace Emperor

  • "The emperor did not pass any church without saluting Jesus in teh Blessed Sacrament and giving him honor. This is what he taught his children: that they should make the sign of the cross whenever they passed by a church in the car." (160)
  • "Perhaps what would become his biggest Achilles' heel was his unending attempt to see the best in everyone. Of a noble disposition himself, he failed at times to see the deceitfulness in others." (164)
  • "The Sacred Heart Litany and the Day of the Heart of Jesus were among his favorite prayers." (165)
  • "His subjects called him 'The People's Emperor,' a title he cherished more than his noble and royal titles." (166)
  • "Charles identified with his fellow soldiers and was constantly with his front-line troops during World War I....This was unprecedented behavior for an Austrian Kaiser—throughout Austria's history, military leaders of aristocratic blood viewed themselves as too lofty to mingle with common soldiers, but Charles knew no classism. Some of the soldiers Charles spent time with on the frontlines included Hungarians, Austrians, Czechs and Poles. During one of these visits, one Polish soldier was so inspired by Karl's personal example that he later named his son Karol after him—this name-bearer was Karol Wojtyła who became Pope John Paul II." (169)

Chapter 11: Betrayal and Exile

  • "The Habsburgs were bred to think in multi-national terms. This attitude was reinforced by their Catholic faith." (199)

Chapter 12: Double Throw

  • "Here ensued Charles and Zitas happiest days together since they lived at Hetzendorf, as heirs to Franz Ferdinand. To think that all of that had ended less than five years before! The rest of the year passed by in domestic tranquility; the family attended Mass every day and offered their devotions together; Charles enjoyed helping with the education of his children— especially in religion-and playing and going for walks with them." (224)
  • "Flying over Austria, the pilot pointed out features familiar to them, and the couple were quite giddy with the flight. They had taken the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus from the chapel of Hertenstein with them; this statue would follow the family in all their subsequent adventures." (243)

Chapter 13: Dry Martyrdom

  • Spiritual Disciplines: "His trust in the almighty goodness of Christ reached its perfection in Madiera...He prayed daily the rosary and the three litanies: the Sacred Heart of Jesus, of Loretto, and of St. Joseph; also the The Deum and Psalm 90 (91)...Frequently Charles would say his Rosary, praying in Latin or German." (263-264)
  • "All he could leave the future head of the House of Habsburg were his ideals and his example." (264)
  • "I must suffer like this, so that my people can come together again." (265)
  • "At Vienna, Cardinal Piffl celebrated the funeral as a private service on April 6, 1921 in St. Stephen's Cathedral with Mozart's Requiem." (268)

Chapter 14: The Long Watch

  • Engelbert Dollfuss attempted to base the Austrian state "on Catholic principles as enunciated in Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno", until he was murdered by the Nazis in 1934. (276-277)

Book Three: The Legacy

Chapter 15: Uncrowned Emperor

Chapter 16: Blessings of a Blessed

  • "In consultation with the Habsburgs, the Holy See decided on rather a unique honor for Charles: instead of the day of his death, April 1, the new blessed's feast is October 21, his wedding anniversary. The areas of life in which Charles was seen as a fine example to follow were several: as a Christian ruler, a chivalrous soldier, a devout layman, and as a man who suffered penitentially and without bitterness-all of which are absolutely needed today. But it was how he acted as a husband and father that was to be particularly highlighted by his feast day— even his wife and he conceiving whilst everything was collapsing around them pointed up their openness to life and their refusal to despair." (341)
  • "The very things that won Charles notice in the eyes of the Church are anathema in modern society: the ideas that a ruler can be devout, dedicated to his peoples' welfare to the point of his own death if need be, that a soldier too can be pious, and even amid the horrors of the modern battlefield be a pillar of Chivalry, that a real man can be entirely masculine, exceedingly pious, and devoted to his strong but equally feminine wife, and that such a couple can place their children's welfare completely above their own welfare, let alone pleasure." (342)
  • My ancestors were subjects of Charles! "Slovakia was simply a part of Hungary until the end of World War I." (352)
  • Americans are attracted to Charles because we yearn for a sacrificial king. (357)

Chapter 17: Redux Austriae?

  • "Do such groups want to see Austria-Hungary restored as it was? No. Rather, although details differ, what is on offer is a vision not too far afield from what Franz Ferdinand and Blessed Charles wanted to see in their day: with the Habsburg heir as monarch individually of Austria, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Croatia, and the whole bound together in a federal structure strong enough to act as a counterweight to other influences in European affairs but loose enough to allow for subsidiarity. Certainly, if it ever came to pass, such an imperial federation would be both an example to and a catalyst for change for the whole of Europe." (369)
  • "The only real question is whether the Mother Continent shall regain her Faith and so her soul, to bloom again, in perhaps better wise than ever she has before, or to fall beneath a new wave of domestic or foreign savagery. It was to the first vision that Charles and Zita, and Otto and his sons, were and are dedicated—a vision as true now as it was more than a hundred years ago." (372)

Topic: Blessed Karl

Source

Created: 2023-09-25-Mon
Updated: 2025-12-02-Tue