An Emperor for the Modern World

Why should modern, enlightened, democratic Westerners have a devotion to an Emperor? Mr Franer gives some very good reasons.

From Crisis

By Augustine Franer

Why ought we, a democratic and politically enlightened people, foster devotion to a hereditary monarch whose virtues, if any, belonged to a world long since past?

With the light glistening off the mirrors in Louis XIV’s fabulous palace of Versailles and the ink still drying on the treaty, Woodrow Wilson, the twenty-eighth president of the United States and victor over the Central Powers in the Great War, thought he had created a freer, more progressive world out of the ashes of the old. Believing he had deciphered the complex and endlessly problematic European balance of power, he foresaw a glorious and prosperous future ahead for America and the world.

However, as only future generations would fully appreciate, he had in fact put the finishing touches on a revolution the scale of which would have made Robespierre blush. With the conclusion of World War I went the destruction of three Christian kingdoms which had for over a century, since the French Revolution, formed the bedrock of what was left of Christendom. The last to fall and the most ancient of these, Austria-Hungary, was heir to the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne and the last political link with a classical and medieval past that had placed the Catholic Faith at the center of society. It was the final remnant of the secular half of that edifice which Constantine and Pope Sylvester had erected when they united church and state in a symbiotic union that, while supplying the Church with its fair share of headaches, managed to produce the most beautiful civilization the world had ever seen.

Yet now, with the dust settling on the battlefields of Flanders, all that was in the past. Christendom had been destroyed and its last emperor, a pitiable young man of thirty-two, cast into exile with only three years more to live. An abject failure by almost any standard, he had been on the throne for only twenty-four months and had achieved none of his political or military aims. His armies dispersed, his peoples in rebellion, and his enemies triumphant, Karl, Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, appeared to be forsaken by God. The world had moved on from him and so had, it appeared, the Father to whom he had repeatedly appealed during his frequent recitations of the Rosary.

Nevertheless, something about this man struck contemporary observers as peculiar. Cardinal Csernoch, Primate of Hungary, after meeting with Karl to comfort him after yet another failed attempt to reclaim his throne, described the experience: 

I had expected to find a broken, fearful, suffering king. I had been deceived. He was fully and clearly in charge of his position and required neither explanation nor consolation. He accepted the final consequences yet still kept his trust and his hope… He evoked admiration for his wonderful strength. 

How and why would someone, apparently forsaken by everyone for whom he had labored so much, maintain such an even composure? The answer, an answer completely lost on today’s world and one at which it openly scoffs, is and forever will be the only answer to all suffering. That answer, that which grants lasting peace, is twofold and consists in this: knowledge of the Truth and a loving sacrifice on behalf of that Truth. Anyone who has ever achieved any measure of genuine happiness understands this basic fact. Emperor Karl of Austria certainly understood, and because of his great sacrifices on behalf of the Truth, the Catholic Church has raised his name to that of a Blessed and may one day very soon raise that same name to that of a saint.

But why ought we, a democratic and politically enlightened people, foster devotion to a hereditary monarch whose virtues, if any, belonged to a world long since past? The answer to this question becomes immediately apparent when we remember exactly what Karl was: a virtuous man, an excellent husband and father, and (what is unthinkable) a good politician. If one were to make even the most cursory survey of our cultural landscape, one would see that these three resources are perhaps the three most in demand. If we possessed these three in anything even approaching their proper proportions, our world would be unrecognizable compared with what we see today.

Karl was, first and foremost, a virtuous man, and his virtue was achieved through an intense cultivation of body, mind, and spirit. As his duties required, Karl spent years in the military and acquired the discipline and mental fortitude necessary for combatting whatever temptations might distract him from his responsibilities. He took his education very seriously and actively engaged with whatever was being taught him. His thirst for knowledge manifested itself in the regular consumption of newspapers and state papers. Most importantly, he fostered strong devotions to the Blessed Sacrament and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, often losing himself entirely in meditation. How many virtuous men do we have today that possess such habits and such a healthy conception of masculinity?

Aside from being a virtuous man, Karl’s primary vocation was as husband and father, obligations which, even in the worst of times, he never failed to give his full attention. Regardless of the demands placed upon him by state business, Karl always found time to spend with his wife, Zita, and their seven children. Often operating off three or fewer hours of sleep, he would nevertheless consistently pray with them and even find time to play with them amid the endless pressures and stresses of conducting a wartime government. How many husbands and fathers, far from lagging behind their wives in religious practice, put the spiritual development of their children and spouses before every other comfort and despite the competing demands of their professional lives?

Finally, and perhaps most astonishingly, Karl was a good politician. It goes without saying that such a specimen, if not extinct, is endangered and looks to be, in the near future, a walking contradiction. Yet that is what Karl was. He exhausted every available resource to feed and support his suffering people and fought to institute reforms aimed at giving them more control over their own communities. Donating many of the luxuries usually afforded to the palaces of kings in wartime, he lived how his people lived. 

He pursued peace relentlessly and at the cost of his territory, his reputation, and his very throne. He was willing to give anything to save the lives of his people. How many politicians, making the same sacrifices that they ask of their people, would today give their fortunes, their power, and their very lives for the peace and survival of their people?

Yet Karl was all of these things and more. For Karl was one of those chosen souls to whom God grants a taste of that cup from which the King of Kings and Lord of Lords had to drink. After all his hardships and labors on behalf of his people, he was rejected, condemned, and sent away to die in anguish. Nevertheless, throughout all this he maintained an indomitable faith and unshakeable resolve. Dying from exposure to the unhealthy conditions present in his place of exile, Karl’s last words reveal the reason for that inner peace that Cardinal Csernoch found so peculiar in a king who had lost his empire, his fortunes, and his power: “Yes… As you will it… Jesus!” 
Karl needed only to fulfill the will of God to be happy. This is the supreme lesson which can never be repeated too much, and it is the reason devotion to Karl has been spreading throughout America as of late. The old world is gone, and Christendom has fallen. Karl was the very embodiment of this destruction: a deeply Catholic ex-monarch of a defunct empire is stripped of his titles and cast aside. Yet, much to the chagrin of those who by sending him away sought to make an example of him, he is also the antidote: rather than pine away after lost glory, Karl realized that the only glory to be had in this life is that of a devoted and humble servant of Christ whose only ambition is to walk in the footsteps of his Savior.

Meanwhile, President Woodrow Wilson was never able to realize his dream. The Senate refused to ratify his treaty, the vacuum left behind by the destruction of Austria allowed for the growth of the Nazi and Communist leviathans, and the moral degradation of the West has left the world purposeless and in decline. Yet Wilson, even had he been a savvier diplomat, was never going to gain the final victory because he was fighting the wrong enemies and winning the wrong wars. The only battles that achieve lasting victory are those that God asks us to fight, and those battles are for the human soul. In these, Karl emerged victorious; and, deprived of that fading crown of gold that lasts but for a time, he is crowned with everlasting heavenly glory and reigns eternally with Christ his Lord.