United in the Sacred Heart: Emperor Karl, Pius XII, and Cardinal Mindszenty

Mr Donnelly looks at the connections between three key figures of the 20th-century, a Beatified Emperor, a Holy Pope, and a Venerable Archbishop.

From One Peter Five

By Joseph Donnelly

Author’s note: I am immensely grateful to Her Imperial & Royal Highness Archduchess Anna-Carolina von Habsburg-Lothringen for her translation of excerpts from Elizabeth Kovács’ biography of Blessed Karl, “Untergang oder Rettung der Donaumonarchie?”

Introduction

In October 2024, I was blessed to attend a conference entitled, “Blessed Karl of Austria: A Light for Our Times.” Among the impressive line-up of speakers was Princess Maria-Anna Galitzine, granddaughter of Blessed Karl and Servant of God Zita. During her remarks, Princess Maria-Anna reflected upon Karl’s famous parting words to Zita:

When he was dying, Blessed Karl said to his wife… “I love you infinitely. In the heart of Jesus, we will see each other again.” So, you could take this phrase and say, “Yes, they will see each other when she will die, and then, in the heart of Jesus, they will see [each other].” I heard about some other explanation; it makes more sense for me. I always saw my grandmother [Zita] being all the time in Church… I think, each time she was in church, each time she was kneeling down for the consecration or [receiving] communion, she was with her husband because she was in the heart of Jesus, and that’s where she met her husband.[1]

Princess Maria-Anna had previously spoken of her grandparents’ devotion to the Sacred Heart at an event hosted by the Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation in June 2021: “All his [Karl’s] life was inspired by his deep love and devotion to God and the Sacred Heart of Jesus… Together, they [Karl and Zita] promised to center the Sacred Heart of Jesus in their love.”[2] While Karl, of course, was most intimately bound to Zita by virtue of their marriage, it is possible to observe the Sacred Heart as a link between Karl and two other figures not often associated with him: Venerable Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) and Venerable József Mindszenty. Mindszenty’s veneration of Karl has been noted by some, including Charles Coulombe, the famous biographer of Karl (and now of Zita). Others have identified the bond between Pius XII and Mindszenty, particularly during the latter’s persecution in the 1940s and 1950s. What does not seem to be known, however, is the relationship between all three of these men. This article attempts to summarize the overlap of their stories, especially in light of the Sacred Heart appearing throughout. Many secondary characters appear, especially Karl’s eldest son and heir Archduke Otto, and others to varying degrees, such as Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Empress Zita, Cardinal Mindszenty’s mother, Cardinal Siri, St. Pio of Pietrelcina (Padre Pio), Dietrich von Hildebrand, and Bishop Count János Mikes. While Karl died in 1922 (long before Pius XII or Mindszenty), I believe it can be said that his story and “legacy” (to borrow the language of Coulombe) continued, especially through the lives of Mindszenty and Otto; this shall be explained further in the conclusion. So much more could be said than what is contained in this particular account. It is hoped, however, that the following narrative will inspire closer examination of the connections between emperor, pope, and primate.

1. The First Encyclical

For 23-year-old Fr. Eugenio Pacelli and 11-year-old Archduke Karl, the encyclical Annum Sacrum: On Consecration to the Sacred Heart by Pope Leo XIII was most welcome. Published on May 25, 1899, Leo bemoaned the “abundance of evils which have now for a long time settled upon the world, and which pressingly call upon us to seek for help from Him by whose strength alone they can be driven away.”[3] He further announced his intention to, “consecrate the whole human race to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus”,[4] which, according to one author, he called, “the greatest act of his pontificate.”[5] He concluded by issuing the following command: “We ordain that on the ninth, tenth and eleventh of the coming month of June, in the principal church of every town and village, certain prayers be said… On the last day the form of consecration shall be recited which, Venerable Brethren, We sent to you with these letters.”[6] Pacelli had been ordained less than two months before on April 2, Easter Sunday. In his very first encyclical as Pope Pius XII, he noted the proximity of his ordination to Leo’s document: “We, as a newly ordained priest, then just empowered to recite ‘I will go in to the altar of God’ (Psalm xiii. 4), hailed the Encyclical Annum Sacrum with genuine approval, enthusiasm and delight as a message from heaven.”[7]

Although he was but a lad, young Karl resolved to participate in the June 11 consecration, as explained by Charles Coulombe in his newly published biography of Karl’s wife Zita:

[O]n June 11, 1899, Pope Leo XIII consecrated the entire world to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Emperor Franz Joseph and the imperial family joined him in doing so by reciting the appointed prayer of consecration at the Stephansdom at the precise hour when the pope did so in Rome. But Charles, being sick with whooping cough, was left at Villa Wartholz. Nevertheless, he insisted on reciting the same prayer at the same time in the villa’s private chapel.[8]

In his biography of Karl, Coulombe remarks that the future-emperor’s action, “was not too surprising, because he had already cultivated a devotion to the Sacred Heart.”[9] He further notes that Karl’s own mother Maria-Josepha had “inherited” this devotion from her father, King George of Saxony, “whose devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was renowned.”[10] Moreover, the late Elisabeth Kovács, in her masterful two-volume biography of Karl, relates that the Villa Wartholz, where Karl performed the consecration, was his “favorite place” and the site of his first communion in that same year of 1899 and of his confirmation in 1901.[11]

2. Pius X and Benedict XV

Both Karl and Pacelli attended the London coronation of George V in 1910, the former representing Emperor Franz Joseph and the latter representing Pius X. Around the same time, Zita of Bourbon-Parma was granted an audience with the Pope to receive his blessing for Karl and Zita’s proximate marriage. It was at this meeting that Pius X said, among other things, that Karl would be Franz Josef’s immediate successor (instead of the heir-apparent Franz Ferdinand). The pope’s prophetic and troubling words were similar to that of the Ursuline mystic and stigmatist Mother Vinzentia, who is reported to have said regarding Karl: “Yes, one has to pray a lot for him, because he will become Emperor and he will have to suffer a lot. He will be a special point of attack for hell.”[12] When Pius X met Karl as a young archduke, he had declared, “I bless Archduke Karl who will be the future Emperor of Austria and who will help lead his countries and peoples to great honor and many blessings – but this will not become obvious until after his death.”[13] On June 28, 1914, the heir-apparent Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were murdered at Sarajevo. Shortly before his own death two months later, Pius X sent a letter to Karl imploring him to stop Franz Josef from waging war against Serbia. The letter, however, was intercepted and would not surface until years later. Pius was soon succeeded by Benedict XV. Two years later in November 1916, Franz Josef himself died and Karl, thus, became emperor.

Since the early 1900s, Pacelli had progressively risen within the papal Secretariat of State; by 1914, he was secretary of the Congregation of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs. This is likely due to the great esteem in which Pius X held him, as evidenced by, among other things, the Pope prohibiting him from accepting a professorship in law at the Catholic University of America. In April 1917, however, almost three years into World War I, Monsignor Pacelli was named apostolic nuncio to the Kingdom of Bavaria after the previous, newly-appointed nuncio, Giuseppe Aversa, died rather suddenly. Newspapers from the time as well as recent scholarship demonstrate that this was anything but a demotion or a “kick upstairs.” Moreover, while Aversa and Pacelli were the most skilled of diplomats, “Pacelli,” according to Emperor Wilhelm II (quoted by Kovács), “had a more complete and detailed knowledge of the secret plans and intentions of Benedict XV.”[14] As is well-known, the Pope himself consecrated Pacelli a bishop in the Sistine Chapel on May 13, the same day Our Lady first appeared to the children at Fatima. One contemporary account reported that, at the end of the ceremony, “the Pope embraced Mgr Pacelli and held him close with evident enthusiasm.”[15] Kovács further writes that Pacelli’s appointment helped provide, “a way to avoid Valfrè die Bonzo [apostolic nuncio to Austria] and, in part, even Cardinal Gasparri [papal secretary of state].”[16]

The name “Pacelli” denotes peace, and the new archbishop chose as his episcopal motto, “Opus Justiae Pax,” taken from the book of Isaias. Pius X himself used this passage in his first encyclical E Supremi: On the Restoration of All Things in Christ: “But to want peace without God is an absurdity, seeing that where God is absent thence too justice flies, and when justice is taken away it is vain to cherish the hope of peace. ‘Peace is the work of justice’ (Is. xxxii., 17).”[17] It is beyond the scope of this piece to explain all the details of Pacelli’s efforts as, in the words of his housekeeper Mother Pascalina Lehnert, “An Envoy of Peace to the World.”[18] His negotiations with the German government are well-storied; like Karl, he personally urged Emperor Wilhelm and members of the German government and military to work for peace, but in vain. A clue into Pacelli’s view of Woodrow Willson’s wartime conduct may be gleaned from a message he sent to Cardinal Gasparri in the latter half of 1917. The president, Pacelli asserted, was involved in, “a tendentious attempt to mislead public opinion.”[19]

Many sources regarding Pacelli’s peace missions, however, fail to mention his dealings with Karl. The two met outside Munich on June 30, 1917. It appears that Karl, like Benedict XV, came to value Pacelli’s abilities. “Before Christmas of 1917,” writes Kovács: “Karl took further confidential steps with his foreign policy… The emperor had his own informants, as well as access to the informants of the Pope, like the Bavarian Capuchin priest Cölestin Schwaighofer or the Apostolic Nuncio of Bavaria, Eugenio Pacelli.”[20] Likewise, Philippe Chenaux explains that Pacelli was, “directly involved in the attempt to formulate a separate peace agreement between Italy and Austria.”[21] Karl had written in a message to Benedict XV, “I hope that the Apostolic Nuncio in Munich, whom I particularly respect, Mgr Pacelli, can personally go to Rome to impart our shared confidences to Your Holiness.”[22] According to Kovács, “In spite of brutal attacks by the Italian press, Pacelli was willing to take on this mission.”[23] He traveled to Rome in March 1918 after having, “received a visit from a personal emissary of the Emperor in Munich.”[24] This movement for peace, however, was as unsuccessful as that with the German government undertaken by Pacelli in 1917. The combined efforts of Pope, “peace emperor,” and nuncio had come to naught. All the same, “The Nunciature in Munich remained, until the definitive fall of the Double Monarchy [Austria-Hungary], the privileged channel of communications from the Austrian authorities to the Holy See.”[25]

3. Enter Mindszenty

Shortly before his first exile, Karl consecrated himself and his family to the Sacred Heart. The following year (after World War I), he wrote to Benedict XV, “I do not lose heart and in particular have the confidence that the Sacred Heart of Jesus will not abandon the land that is consecrated to him.”[26] For his part, the Pope gave personal, heartfelt support to Karl in the two attempts to reclaim the Hungarian throne in 1921. He urged the Emperor, Kovács writes, “to return to Hungary as soon as possible, to unite the different countries under his crown, and to build up the fortress of the church… The threat of communism on the entire eastern border of Europe led both the French Prime Minister Briand and Pope Benedict XV to inform Karl that the time for a restoration had come.”[27] There was certainly wide support for a restoration in Hungary, even among members of the hierarchy; Karl had informed them of his intentions in 1920. Nevertheless, the Prince-Primate of Hungary János Cardinal Csernoch, as Coulombe once said, “waffled back and forth… [Admiral] Horthy told him to push Karl to abdicate; he wouldn’t do it. But, then, by the same token, he confirmed Horthy in his role as regent, even after his disloyalty was proven, and he ended up endorsing the Horthy regime entirely.”[28] Csernoch himself had crowned Karl Apostolic King of Hungary in 1916. After his second failed attempt, Karl wrote to Benedict XV, “I decided to go to Hungary and put an end to the internal strife with my presence, not led by ambition but guided by my duties that bind me as crowned king and are more sacred to me than my rights.”[29] As he lay on his deathbed after a prolonged illness in his second exile, he declared, “I have to suffer so much that my peoples may come together again.”[30] That same April 1, 1922, he died.

Among the Hungarian bishops loyal to Karl, one in particular, Count János Mikes, “was renowned for his legitimism.”[31] It was at his residence that Karl arrived, unannounced, during the first restoration attempt. On June 12, 1915, the feast of the Sacred Heart, Mikes had ordained to the priesthood a cleric with like-minded sympathies by the name of József Pehm. Hungarian born but of German ancestry, Don Pehm adopted in 1942 the surname “Mindszenty” (after his birthplace of Mindszent) in defiance of the Nazis and their “campaign to induce Hungarians of German descent to discard their Hungarian names and take German names instead.”[32] An article from the Otto von Habsburg Foundation summarizes his attachment to Karl and the imperial family:

In the penultimate year of World War I, the young cleric assigned to the town of Zala quickly became well known in local public life. He never made a secret of his ideological and political commitments. During his twenty-seven years of service there (1917–1944), he continuously built his legitimist image, initially in the town, then in the diocese, and from the early 1930s in the public life of the country after the Treaty of Trianon.

…

Pehm’s most spectacular undertaking was undoubtedly the construction of a second church, which had long been necessary due to the town’s growing population. The house of God, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, was built in two years to commemorate the last Habsburg monarch, King Charles IV.[33]

…

After the death of King Charles in 1922, József Pehm’s legitimism “fell” on Otto, the oldest male member of the imperial family. He first met the heir to the throne in person in 1924, when he made a detour from a pilgrimage to Lourdes to visit the exiled Habsburgs in Lequeitio, northern Spain… His visit was followed by several others, and he continued to visit the family even after Zita and her children moved to Steenokkerzeel, near Brussels, in 1930.[34]

Mindszenty was first imprisoned by Communists in 1919 during the short-lived “dictatorship of the proletariat” (though he had already been targeted by the “socialistic Karolyi party” after the collapse of the monarchy).[35] He was imprisoned a second time by Nazi Arrow Cross party in 1944. That same year, he had been appointed Bishop of Veszprém by Pius XII. Fr. Joseph Vecsey, who knew Mindszenty’s mother, reports that during this second imprisonment, “she entrusted her son and his fellow prisoners to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and offered all her Masses and Rosaries for their welfare. She had great faith that the Sacred Heart would sustain them.”[36] In the foreword to his book The Mother, first published during Word War I, Mindszenty had written, “Whatever I have become is due to the merits and prayers of my mother.”[37]

4. The Second Encyclical

After a period in Munich and then Berlin, Nuncio Pacelli was made Cardinal Secretary of State by Pius XI in 1930 and, following the pope’s death, was elected supreme pontiff on his sixty-third birthday, March 2, 1939. As mentioned earlier, he dwelt upon the proximity of Leo XIII’s encyclical Annum Sacrum to his own 1899 ordination in his very first encyclical Summi Pontificatus: On the Unity of Human Society, published October 20,1939 during World War II. Pius also noted that his election occurred forty years after Annum Sacrum.

We associated Ourselves in fervent admiration with the motives and aims which inspired and directed the truly providential action of a Pontiff so sure in his diagnosis of the open and hidden needs and sores of his day. It is only natural, then, that We should today feel profoundly grateful to Providence for having designed that the first year of Our Pontificate should be associated with a memory so precious and so dear of Our first year of priesthood.[38]

Furthermore, he made mention of the approaching feast of Christ the King (the last Sunday of October) when, per the mandate of Pius XI, the consecration to the Sacred Heart composed by Leo XIII was to be performed each year:

[M]ay the approaching Feast of Christ the King, on which this, Our first Encyclical, will reach you, be a day of grace and of thorough renewal and revival in the spirit of the Kingdom of Christ. May it be a day when the consecration of the human race to the Divine Heart, which should be celebrated in a particularly solemn manner, will gather the Faithful of all peoples and all nations around the throne of the Eternal King, in adoration and in reparation, to renew now and forever their oath of allegiance to Him and to His law of truth and of love.[39]

5. Regent of Hungary

In 1945, Pius XII appointed Mindszenty Archbishop of Esztergom and, accordingly, Primate of Hungary. Mindszenty had been a bishop for barely a year and a half. In his memoirs, he describes his acceptance of the new elevation: “The decisive factor for me was the confidence of Pope Pius XII. He knew my character, knew that I was more concerned with the care of souls than politics.”[40] A few pages later, Mindszenty explains his mentality regarding the role of Prince Primate of Hungary:

Because the right of crowning the king fell to him, the archbishop of Esztergom held the foremost place among the dignitaries of the state as well as the Church. When the king was absent from the country, the archbishop represented him… If the king violated the constitution, the archbishop of Esztergom was obliged to rebuke him and demand he obey the law of the land. In carrying out this duty the archbishops of Esztergom frequently suffered sore oppression and even imprisonment. The nation expected that of its primates[.]

…

The dignity, the rights, and the duties of the primate had remained intact in the new constitution that was drawn up after the end of the First World War. The provisional assembly that met in Debrecen in 1945 did not discuss the constitutional position of the primate at all, which signified that people and government acknowledged it as unchanged. In my response to the congratulatory telegram from the premier and the provisional government I was careful to refer to this fact: My telegram read: “Many thanks for the warm congratulations. The highest constitutional authority of the country stands ready to serve his native land.”… In my installation sermon I stressed the historical background of the office and spoke of what the nation had a right to expect from its primate.[41]

Giuseppe Cardinal Siri (who was, indeed, Pius XII’s desired successor as pope[42]) also explains how Mindszenty’s view of the Prince Primate being rooted in its historical nature under the Hungarian monarchy is directly tied to his future conduct:

The function of the archbishop of Esztergom is unique in history because, from St. Stephen [King of Hungary] onwards, he was considered prince of Hungary and therefore bore the name of prince primate of Hungary. This leads to the following consequence: When the king was absent from the country, the prince primate succeeded to the regency of the kingdom. Without this detail, which gave the primate of Strigonia a unique, absolutely unique, constitutional position of being the first after the king and replacing him in his absence, one would not understand the soul of this great man.[43]

6. Pius XII and Mindszenty

Anyone familiar with Mindszenty’s memoirs knows how much praise and admiration he showers on Pius XII. For instance, he writes, “As papal legate to the Eucharistic Congress in 1938, he had come to Budapest and since that time had been warmly disposed toward us.”[44] It is interesting to note that, while in Budapest, the future Pius XII befriended the parents of Archduke Michael von Habsburg-Lothringen, father of the popular Hungarian ambassador Archduke Eduard. Archduke Michael revealed in an interview that, “I’m Michael Pius, because Pius XII is my godfather… When my mother was expecting her eighth child, that’s me, she wrote to the Pope. The Holy Father answered very kindly and sent Cardinal Angelo Rotta to represent the Pope at my christening, in the palace of my grandfather.”[45] In time, Archduke Michael would become president of the Hungarian Mindszenty Foundation, which has long been responsible for cardinal’s beatification.

Mindszenty was included among the thirty-two cardinals Pius XII appointed in the consistory of 1946. Various “delaying tactics” of government officials in Hungary, however, prevented Mindszenty from reaching Rome on schedule.[46] After explaining this in his memoirs, Mindszenty records Pius XII’s words to him during the ceremonies:

[T]he Holy Father received me in private audience. I had to tell him about the reason for my lateness. It may be that my description, which gave him insight into our situation, prompted him to embrace me at the consistory and to say: “Éljen Magyarország!” (“Long live Hungary!”) When he placed the cardinal’s hat on my head, he said in a deeply moved voice: “Among the thirty-two you will be the first to suffer the martyrdom whose symbol this red color is.”[47]

Mother Vincenzia had prophesied that Emperor Karl would, “be a special point of attack for hell.” Pius XII seems to have made a similarly ominous remark to Mindszenty. Mother Pascalina Lehnert records her interactions with Pius regarding his words:

“But how could Your Holiness know what you were saying to the Cardinal? Isn’t it terrible for him to hear such a prognosis from the Holy Father?” Pius XII replied that he had been startled himself when he heard himself say, “Among these thirty-two you will be the first to suffer the martyrdom symbolized by this red color.” When pictures later appeared in the newspapers of the terrible show trial dragging the tortured Cardinal and Archbishop of Esztergom before the eyes of the world, Pius XII said with tears in his eyes, “My words have come true and all I can do is pray; I cannot help him in any other way.”

However, the Holy Father did not remain silent![48]

Indeed, Pius XII did not remain silent, and Mindszenty knew it: “He constantly intervened in my behalf whenever difficulties arose for me.”[49]

7. The Fake Restoration Attempt

Mindszenty was arrested by Hungary’s Communist regime on December 26, the feast of St. Stephen the first martyr, in 1948. Among other things, he was accused of plotting to overthrow the government and crown Otto, the eldest son of Emperor Karl, with the crown of St. Stephen of Hungary. This was construed, in part, by pointing to Mindszenty’s brief 1947 meeting with Otto (at the archduke’s request) in the United States. To this, Mindszenty responded, as he records in his memoirs:

I did so because I knew that he has good connections with important persons in public and ecclesiastical life in America. I therefore asked him to help us in obtaining and transporting charitable gifts from America… The statement you have presented to me mentions a written commission from me to Otto von Habsburg. Cardinal Spellman… asked me to prepare such a commission for Otto von Habsburg. The cardinal, like many others, feared that sooner or later I might be arrested. In that case he wanted some well-known and well-informed personage to be authorized as the spokesman for persecuted Hungarians in my stead.[50]

Regarding the crown of St. Stephen, which had been given to American forces during World War II before the Soviet arrival, he said, “I wanted to return it to Rome, whence we received it a thousand years ago. I wanted it entrusted to the care of Pius XII, who is a great friend of Hungary.”[51] (The crown is said to have been given to St. Stephen of Hungary by Pope Sylvester II. Cardinal Csernoch, as prince primate, had crowned Karl with it in 1916.) These and all other explanations were deemed inadequate by the accusers. After continual beating and mocking in the hopes of obtaining a signed confession of his alleged crimes, Mindszenty was subjected to a show trial and sentenced to life imprisonment.

8. Karl, Otto, and Pius

During the first years of Mindszenty’s time in prison, significant events occurred regarding Karl and Otto. In 1949, twenty-seven years after his premature death in exile, the Vatican announced that Emperor Karl’s cause for canonization had been formally opened. Two years later, Otto married Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen on May 10, 1951 in Nancy, France. The day was marked by comparative pomp and splendor, despite bride and bridegroom having been dispossessed of rank, wealth, and property. The Otto von Habsburg Foundation reports that, “tens of thousands of people from all over the former Austro-Hungarian Empire came to witness the marriage… At the end of the Mass, the Austrian imperial anthem was sung, as well as the Hungarian and Czech anthems.”[52] Monsignor Joseph Zagon, Apostolic Visitator Extraordinary for Hungarian exiles, “celebrated Mass as the Pope’s official delegate.”[53] Zagon was also a friend of Regina. She herself had worked in Munich at a Hungarian refugee camp; there she met Otto, who was an interpreter. Pius XII’s message to the couple was read publicly during the nuptial festivities:

Soon (…) His Imperial and Royal Highness will marry Princess Regina of Saxe-Meiningen. We cannot pass by this happy event without sharing their joy and expressing our congratulations. Our love and filial piety so wish. We pray to the eternal and loving Father to keep them faithful to their predecessors, and to grant them a long and peaceful life, rich in work and merit. This we wish, and therefore we pray with all our hearts, and to you, our dear son, we give our apostolic blessing on your spouse and on your whole household.[54]

Some time afterwards, Pius XII received both Otto and Regina in audience. It is interesting to note that the famous Dietrich von Hildebrand, a great devotee of Emperor Karl, reports the following regarding a meeting with his “beloved friend” Cardinal Secretary of State Pacelli from 1936: “I spoke to him on this occasion about the cause of legitimism in Austria and its aspirations for the return of the Habsburgs. His reply, ‘magari, magari,’ ‘if only, if only it could be so,’ made clear how much he would welcome this and simultaneously how difficult and unlikely he considered it.”[55]

9. The Third Encyclical

In the early years of Mindszenty’s imprisonment, his mother wrote to a friend, as Vecsey reports, “My heart aches so much for my son who is suffering in prison. I commend him constantly to the protection of the Sacred Heart and the Blessed Mother.”[56] In 1950, thirty-five years after his ordination on the feast of the Sacred Heart, he was permitted to celebrate Mass for the first time after nine months of imprisonment. That day was also the feast of the Sacred Heart. On the same June 16, a statue of the Sacred Heart, purchased by Mindszenty’s mother, was dedicated at her parish Church in Mindszent. Vecsey reports that she received a telegram granting her permission to visit Mindszenty, “the moment she left the church after the dedication of her statue.”[57]

Six years later, Pius XII published his encyclical Haurietis Aquas: On Devotion to the Sacred Heart. The encyclical commemorated the centenary of Pius IX having, “extended the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to the Universal Church.”[58] Pius XII made reference to his encyclical Summi Pontificatus from 1939: “When We took up Our office of Supreme Pontiff and saw, in full accord with Our prayers and desires, that the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus had increased… We rejoiced that from it were flowing through the whole Church innumerable and salutary results.”[59] As to be expected, he also dwelt upon Leo XIII’s Annum Sacrum: “We are pleased to address once again to all Our dear sons in Christ those words of exhortation which Leo XIII, of immortal memory, towards the close of the last century addressed to all the faithful and to all who were genuinely anxious about their own salvation and that of civil society.”[60]

The author of a commentary on Haurietis Aquas, Fr. Alban J. Dachauer, S.J., notes the correlation of the encyclical’s promulgation and a notable event in Pius XII’s life:

It is perhaps not without significance that the Holy Father Pius XII published his Encyclical Haurietis Aquas, on Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, on the very same day on which he wrote his last will and testament, May 15, 1956. This turned out to be the last of his great doctrinal Encyclicals, and he may well have considered it a final gift to his children, whom he loved with a love that resembled nothing as much as it resembled Christ’s love for us.[61]

Mother Pascalina Lehnert records the astonishing circumstances of Pius writing his testament:

It was in the night of May 14/15, 1956. At 1:30, the bell rang. What had happened? The Holy Father never called during the night. We quickly dressed and hurried to the study. The Holy Father was sitting there at his desk and said, “I shall die quite suddenly one day–and I haven’t made a testament.”

…

The following morning he returned to the matter, saying, “I slept well for those four hours because I’d done what I was supposed to do. I shall die quite suddenly one day and I’m glad I’ve written my testament. All I need to do now is to copy it out again. I’ve asked God for a day . . .” I could not manage a reply as I was close to tears.[62]

10. Saviors of Hungary

On October 6, 1956, Pope Innocent XI, who reigned from 1676-1689, was beatified in St. Peter’s Basilica amidst great splendor of ceremony. Among his various actions as supreme pontiff, he “sought to rally the Christian West against invading infidels from the East,” as reported by the New York Times.[63] The estimated 30,000 attendees, one Catholic newspaper noted, included, “an official Austrian delegation headed by Education Minister Heinrich Drimmel and Archbishop Franz Koenig of Vienna, and a group of Hungarian exiles. Both groups came to pay homage to the Pope who had played a leading role in the liberation of their countries from the Turks.”[64] Just a year before in 1955, Austria had gained (seemingly miraculous) independence from Soviet control after a widespread rosary crusade which began in the 1940s. It is not difficult to observe the similarity between the “Eastern threat” of the 17th century and that of the 20th century. Indeed, it seems this was noted at the time.

Pius XII made an appearance at the ceremonies and, thus, broke, “with the old tradition of the complete absence of a reigning pontiff during a beatification.”[65] Mother Pascalina notes that Pius, who was rather strict in his evaluation of causes for sainthood, was especially committed to the beatification of Innocent XI: “It was extremely gratifying for him to see this Pope, who had suffered so much during lifetime and been subjected to such persecution, now find his final resting place, clad in Pius XII’s robes, opposite Pius X in St. Peter’s.”[66] It is interesting to note that a statute had been erected to Innocent in Budapest where, as previously mentioned, Cardinal Pacelli was papal legate for the International Eucharistic Congress. Indeed, Innocent has been hailed the “Savior of Hungary.” It was also he who, in 1686, had extended the feast of St. Stephen of Hungary to the universal calendar. Finally, Pius had quoted Innocent in his 1956 encyclical on the Sacred Heart: “This false mystical doctrine the Church emphatically rejects as, speaking through Our predecessor of happy memory, Innocent XI, she rejected the errors of those who foolishly declared: ‘(Souls of this interior way) ought not to make acts of love for the Blessed Virgin, the Saints or the humanity of Christ.’”[67]

While the Polish King John Sobieski (and, to a lesser degree, Innocent XI) is well-known in conjunction with the 1683 battle at Vienna which is credited with having saved Austria (and Europe) from the invading Muslims, it is not often mentioned that the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I of the House of Habsburg was, also, deeply involved. An excerpt from Archduke Eduard von Habsburg-Lothringen’s The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times, should suffice for our purposes:

He formed an alliance with Venice and the Pope, which was only to be expected. But in a master stroke, he arranged the Treaty of Warsaw of 1683 in which Poland and Austria mutually promised to defend each other, if the Turks attacked either Warsaw or Vienna… Although the emperor himself was not present in battle for Vienna, everyone understood that it had been his strategic maneuvering that had enabled the victory… In the following years, Leopold I and the Holy Roman Empire… were finally able to push the Ottomans out of Hungary and farther back into the Balkans.[68]

11. All Hands on Deck

“There’s a revolution in Budapest!”[69] So cried a priest appointed to assist Mindszenty during his mitigated sentence of house arrest in a Hungarian castle. It was the morning of October 24, 1956. By October 30, he was liberated. “I took the two pictures so precious to me from the wall, the picture of the Holy Father and of my mother.”[70] Earlier that month, the popular Imre Nagy had been readmitted to the Communist party in Hungary. “That,” says Mindszenty, “was a first flash of lightning in the realm of Moscow’s satellites. Nevertheless, anyone who might have ventured to predict that revolution would break out in ten days would have been laughed at.”[71] Eventually, protests and demonstrations in Budapest and across Hungary erupted into open fighting. Imre Nagy was soon made premier and began to rollback hated aspects of the regime. After an emotionally-charged journey amidst cheering crowds, Mindszenty was warmly welcomed back to Budapest. By November 1, all Soviet troops had left the city. In conversation with the newly formed government, Mindszenty stressed, “the utmost importance to request and obtain the intervention of the United Nations as soon as possible,” since the Soviets could not be trusted.[72]

Archduke Otto closely watched the developments. In a proclamation issued in Hungarian on October 28, he declared that the rebel forces were, “at the forefront of Christian principles, our sacred freedom and our Hungarianness.”[73] According to the Otto von Habsburg Foundation, “It is thanks to him, among other things, that the Hungarian issue was presented at the General Assembly of the United Nations and was one of the few who took concrete steps to help the Hungarian revolution to receive Western military help.”[74] Pius XII was also extremely active. On the same October 28, the feast of Christ the King (the appointed feast for the annual consecration of the world to the Sacred Heart), he issued his first encyclical during the events in Hungary: “Our paternal heart is deeply moved by the sorrowful events which have befallen the people of eastern Europe and especially of Our beloved Hungary, which is now being soaked in blood by a shocking massacre.”[75] He referred to his 1938 visit to Budapest for the Eucharistic Congress:

We then had the joy and consolation of seeing the dear Catholics of Hungary follow with ardent piety and profoundest veneration the August Sacrament of the altar as it was carried in solemn procession through the streets of the city.

We are sure that the same faith in and love for our Divine Redeemer still inspire the hearts of this people even though the champions of atheistic communism attempt with every possible stratagem to despoil their minds of the religion of their forefathers.[76]

On November 1, he issued a second encyclical, rejoicing at the promising developments:

We give unceasing thanks to God from Our heart that He has heard so many prayers, especially of innocent boys and girls, and a new dawn of peace based on justice seems to be breaking at long last for the people of Poland and Hungary.

With no less joy have We learned that Our beloved sons, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Stefan Wyszynski, Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw, and Jozef Mindszenty, Archbishop of Esztergom, who had both been expelled from their Sees, are acknowledged to be innocent men, unjustly accused of crime, and as such have already been restored to their positions of honor and responsibility and welcomed in triumph by rejoicing multitudes.[77]

By November 5, however, his words took a mournful turn in yet another encyclical: “But tidings have reached Us lately which fill Our heart with pain and sorrow. There is being shed again in the cities, towns, and villages of Hungary the blood of citizens who long with all their hearts for their rightful freedom.”[78] Soviet troops had rolled back into Hungary. Two days before, Mindszenty had given a radio address to the Hungarian parliament in which he expressed his special gratitude to Pius XII, “for having so often remembered the head of the Hungarian Roman Catholic Church.” Like Otto, he reflected upon the present circumstances in light of Hungarian history: “After the reign of our first king, St. Stephen, we became a great nation… But we had to keep fighting for our freedom, mostly in defense of the Western countries… Now is the first instant in history that Hungary is enjoying the sympathy of all cultural nations.” He also made particular note of Hungary’s immediate neighbor to the West: “I must mention that for the brotherly understanding in our present suffering every Hungarian has embraced to his heart Austria.”[79]

Despite a United Nations condemnation of the Soviet Union and fervent appeals from Hungary, no help came. “The great powers of the world,” Mindszenty writes in his memoirs, “quailed before the Soviet army while schoolchildren fought that army for an entire week… The two losers in the Hungarian struggle for freedom were on the one hand world communism, whose moral standing sank to a new low, and on the other hand the West and the United Nations, whose impotence was exposed.”[80] Otto similarly expressed that the Soviet Union “got the death wound” by the events of 1956 and, thus, “No, the Hungarian Uprising was not in vain!”[81] Mindszenty contrasted the behavior of the Western nations with that of Pius XII:

He utilized all the means at his disposal; on a single day he made three successive appeals to the entire world in behalf on Hungary… Like a father protecting his threatened children, in his radio address of November 10 he upheld the civilization, the humanity, and the justice of our nation against “brutal and illegal oppression.” With a glance at the Great Powers he even declared, speaking in the name of religion, that in this case a defensive war would be justified. He posed the question: “May the world remain indifferent when the blood of so many innocents has been shed? When once more so much sorrow and so much killing has been inflicted?”[82]

Likewise, Mother Pascalina writes: “It is common knowledge that Pius XII alone stood by the Hungarians in their uprising against Communist rule. His 1956 Christmas message bears eloquent testimony to this.”[83]

12. Like King, Like Primate

With the Soviets re-taking control of Budapest, Mindszenty sought asylum at the American legation, “After eight years of imprisonment and now shipwrecked after three and a half days of freedom, I clambered aboard the saving deck of the American Embassy to escape being carried off to the Soviet Union and to wait for the day that would once more permit me to work in behalf of my native land.”[84] Mindszenty’s presence in the legation was a thorn in the side of the new regime, but it seems both the United States and the Holy See supported his position. By 1971, however, détente appeared to be in vogue. Following negotiations between the Hungarian Communists and the Holy See, Mindszenty left his native land, never to return alive. “I would like to spend the rest of my life in Hungary among my people whom I love so much. But as this has become impossible, . . . I will accept what is probably the heaviest cross of my life.”[85] One may be reminded of Karl’s statement when he was about to be exiled after his second restoration attempt: “[A]ccording to the Hungarian law I have an indisputable right to reside on Hungarian soil.”[86]

In time, despite assurances from Paul VI himself that he would, “always remain archbishop of Esztergom and primate of Hungary,” Mindszenty received a letter “exactly on the twenty-fifth anniversary” of his arrest that the Pope would declare, “the archiepiscopal See of Esztergom vacant.”[87]  After his removal was made public, however, Mindszenty issued a statement to correct the narratives that he had actually “abdicated his office as archbishop” and “his dignity as primate of Hungary.” On the contrary, “The decision was taken by the Holy See alone.”[88] After providing the statement, which explains why he would never resign (though he submitted to the decision of the Pope), he writes the final sentence of his memoirs: “This is the path I traveled to the end, and this is how I arrived at complete and total exile.”[89] Among the numerous critics of Paul VI’s decision was Dietrich von Hildebrand, the previously mentioned friend of Mindszenty’s deceased defender Pius XII:

The deposition of Cardinal Mindszenty as Primate of Hungary, and the concession to the communist government of Hungary of the right to veto the installing of any Bishop is obviously a delivering over of the Church in Hungary to the power of Communism. All the concern about having the Archdiocese of Estergom without a Bishop cannot blind us to the unheard-of surrender of the Church to Communism by this act.[90]

13. Tying Up Lose Ends

We now come to the final phase of our story. Mindszenty was first taken to Rome after his departure from Hungary. In a single paragraph of his memoirs, he mentions two things quite relevant to our present study: “In St. Paul’s [Outside the Walls] a priest joined me, seized my hand, kissed it, and thanked me for my sufferings for the Church. Finally he introduced himself: ‘I am Cardinal Siri.’… In grateful remembrance I celebrated Mass in St. Peter’s at the tomb of Pope Pius XII.”[91] We quoted Siri’s praise of Mindszenty earlier in our piece. Furthermore, as has been said, Siri was Pius XII’s desired successor as pope. It is worth mentioning the widely-corroborated claim that none other than Padre Pio declared to have seen Pius XII in heaven after the latter’s death in 1958.[92] Also, the vice-postulator for Mindszenty’s beatification has said that Padre Pio indeed bilocated to Mindszenty’s cell during his last imprisonment, bringing him bread and wine for mass.[93] Siri himself immensely esteemed Padre Pio and, according to Renzo Allegri, “Empress Zita of Austria, together with her son Robert and her daughters Adelaide and Felicity” were among the countless visitors of Padre Pio.[94] Finally, the Hungarian Monsignor George Pogany revealed that Padre Pio held Emperor Karl’s immediate predecessor in high regard: “He had the highest respect for our emperor, Francis Joseph, because Francis Joseph, at the Corpus Christi procession in Vienna every year followed the Blessed Sacrament in procession, with one hand on his walking stick – because he was old – and with the other hand holding a candle.”[95]

On October 11, 1972, the feast of Our Lady’s Motherhood, Mindszenty arrived for a visit in Portugal. October 11 was also the day that, fourteen years before, the grand procession of Pius XII’s mortal remains began at Castel Gandolfo and proceeded to St. Peter’s. Pius XII’s funeral had taken place two days later. “And even here,” says Mother Pascalina, “Our Lady accompanied her faithful son–that memorable October 13 was Fatima Day.”[96] On the evening of October 12, 1972, Mindszenty writes, “I took part in the torchlight procession in Fatima and in the rosary procession the next morning.”[97] It should be recalled that Benedict XV consecrated Pius XII, then Eugenio Pacelli, a bishop on May 13, 1917, the date of the first apparition at Fatima. Mindszenty continues:

On the morning of the fifteenth we made the stations of the cross at the Hungarian Calvary and I celebrated Mass in St. Stephen’s Chapel. That afternoon we flew to Madeira. In Funchal, at the tomb of King Charles IV, whose body was being exhumed for the initiation of the canonization proceedings, I celebrated Mass for Hungarians. The theme of my address was that the sorrowful destiny of the last Hungarian king and the partition of our country have called attention to the almost unbearable sufferings of the Hungarian people. The following day I prayed at the graves in Lisbon of Regent Miklós Horthy and his wife.[98]

According to a biographer of Mindszenty, Margit Balogh, “Mindszenty’s show of reverence at their graves [Karl’s and Horthy’s] was regarded in Budapest as a provocation and as sending a hostile message to the People’s Republic of Hungary.”[99] Earlier in 1972, Mindszenty paid a visit to Karl’s widow Zita, as Princess Maria-Anna Galitzine recalls:

I met Cardinal Mindszenty at the 80th birthday party for my grandmother Empress Zita in 1972, in Switzerland… I remember my grandmother speaking with him in fluent Hungarian. They were both very happy. They had a lot of common memories. He was a very young chaplain when he participated in the crowning of King Karl in Budapest in 1916. At the end of the Mass celebrated by the Cardinal for Empress Zita, we all sang the Hungarian hymnusz, which we had to rehearse long before.[100]

Zita had donated towards the pulpit for Mindszenty’s church, consecrated in 1927, commemorating Emperor Karl and dedicated to the Sacred Heart. She had also obtained from President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, “a promise to save Hungary from Stalin, a promise forgotten at Yalta,” as Coulombe remarks.[101] Another of Zita’s grandchildren, Archduke Rudolf von Habsburg, was once asked if Zita and Mindszenty had talked about Regent Horthy at their meeting in 1972. To this, the archduke responded:

I don’t know because my grandmother was always very discreet. I think if she spoke to the cardinal — both of them, without even making a deal, knew that they would not tell other people what was said, so they could talk freely. What I know is that the regent, Miklos Horthy, who had betrayed his king [my grandparents], came to Brussels to ask my grandmother to pardon him, and she did it.[102]

Zita and Mindszenty’s 1972 meeting is immortalized in photographs which also show Archduke Otto, who had, at Mindszenty’s request, attempted to dissuade the Vatican from removing him from the offices of archbishop and primate. Moreover, Mindszenty took Otto’s advice to separate his memoirs from, “his monumental church history material, written during his years at the embassy, from the corpus, so that the volume primarily summarizes the chronicle of his own personal fate.”[103] In that same year of 1972, the tomb of Otto’s father was opened. Otto himself was among those who beheld the body of Emperor Karl, fifty after his death in 1922, to be found, “almost completely incorrupt.”[104]

Mindszenty’s primary residence during his exile was the Hungarian seminary, the “Panzmaneum,” in Vienna, Austria. It was here that Mindszenty’s legitimist bishop, Count János Mikes, had desired him to reside as a seminarian, but he had declined: “The bishop was more than amazed by my refusal; he was quite annoyed and during the next few years let me feel his annoyance frequently… Today, in exile, I am happy to have found a home in this very institute.”[105] In Mindszeny’s memoirs (at least the English edition) is a photograph of him celebrating mass in the seminary chapel. On the sanctuary wall above the altar, one can clearly observe the depiction of Our Blessed Lord and His Sacred Heart.

Mindszenty died on May 6, 1975, three days before Zita’s eighty-third birthday. In his coffin, writes Balogh, was placed, “a photograph of Mindszenty’s mother and a handful of earth from her grave… as were also a copy of Mindszenty’s memoirs and a stone from his titular church in Rome (Santo Stefano Rotondo).” His funeral took place in Vienna’s Cathedral of St. Stephen (of Hungary) where, seventy-six years before at solemn ceremonies attended by Emperor Franz Joseph, Austria had been consecrated to the Sacred Heart. Otto’s wife Regina as well as Zita’s family the Bourbons of Parma (Zita did not return to Austria until 1982) were present. Zita’s funeral in 1989 as well as Otto’s in 2011 would also take place in St. Stephen’s; at both occasions, the Austrian imperial anthem was sung. Although it occurred before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the regime in Hungary permitted “about 50,000 Hungarians to cross the border into Austria” for the funeral of their Apostolic Queen, which took place on April 1, 1989, the anniversary of Karl’s death.[106] In accord with Mindszenty’s wishes, he was re-entombed in Hungary in 1991 after the fall of that same regime. His remains were carried, “by the same black Mercedes that was used at the funeral of Queen Zita.”[107] Coulombe notes that Otto played “a prominent part” in Mindszenty’s reburial at the Cathedral of Esztergom.[108] The archduke proclaimed in his speech that, “we owe the freedom of Hungary to him, because he kept in us the faith and the hope that God’s righteousness would cast the last word. József Mindszenty brought the resurrection to us on Good Friday.”[109]

Conclusion

As I wrote in my introductory remarks, I believe there remains a link between Karl, Pius XII, and Mindszenty in spite of Karl’s early death in 1922. As there has been little to no commentary throughout this account, I shall attempt to highlight the important connections found among the various events narrated. In the first place, amidst the carnage of the First World War, Pope Benedict XV and Emperor Karl were two of the only (if not the only) world leaders who sought a genuinely swift and just peace. Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pius XII and personal envoy of Benedict XV, earnestly sought to carry out the Pope’s desires in this regard. As such, it could be said that Pope, Nuncio, and Emperor were united in a common aim. After the war, Benedict urged Karl to reclaim the Hungarian throne not only for the good of Hungary but of all the former imperial lands and, it could be said, of Europe as a whole. Even as his attempts failed, Karl offered up the great sufferings of his final months for the peoples of his dismembered empire. In time, a yet more grievous war broke out in Europe and Pacelli, once Benedict’s envoy of peace, was now in Benedict’s shoes as Pius XII. Hardly had the war ended than he appointed Mindszenty, zealous legitimist and less than two years a bishop, Archbishop of Esztergom and Primate of Hungary. As his own memoirs and Cardinal Siri demonstrate, Mindszenty consciously drew from the historical nature of the primate’s office to inform his conduct. The exiled king was dead and his heir, Archduke Otto, was unable to return; it fell to Mindszenty, therefore, to protect and guide the Hungarian people, especially in the face of the post-war regime.

Falsely charged for plotting a restoration he certainly would have welcomed, Mindszenty was imprisoned by a government that, it could be said, may not have even existed had the great powers been receptive to the efforts of Benedict XV and Karl during World War I. Mindszenty, however, was firmly defended by Pius XII, the same man who, decades earlier, had supported Pope and Emperor in the quest for peace. Furthermore, in the same year as Mindszenty’s show-trial, the beatification process for his exiled king was opened. While Mindszenty suffered imprisonment, Pius XII bestowed his apostolic blessing on the wedding of Otto and Regina (as Pius X had done for Karl and Zita) and encouraged the royal couple to remain “faithful to their predecessors.” In October 1956, as authorized by Pius XII, Pope Innocent XI, the “Savior of Hungary”, was most prominently beatified. Days later, the events of the Hungarian Uprising began. From afar, Pius and Otto sought to obtain assistance for the so-called rebels while, on the ground, Mindszenty advised the newly-formed government. The uprising was crushed by the Soviets, though not before Hungary experienced for, “the first instant in history… the sympathy of all cultural nations,” as Mindszenty declared in his November 3 radio address.

Just as Karl was exiled from Hungary due to the actions of Regent Horthy and, it could said, of Cardinal Csernoch, so too was Mindszenty exiled due to the post-1956 regime in Hungary and the Vatican. In exile, however, Mindszenty helps to bring our story to completion. While his hopes for a restoration were not fulfilled during his life, he was able to visit Zita, his Apostolic Queen, and celebrate mass at the tomb of his exiled king in 1972. As already noted, Mindszenty writes that, “The theme of my address was that the sorrowful destiny of the last Hungarian king and the partition of our country have called attention to the almost unbearable sufferings of the Hungarian people.” His words call to mind those of Pius X that Karl would, “help lead his countries and peoples to great honor and many blessings,” but this would, “not become obvious until after his death.” It also reminds one of Karl’s personal oblation in exile: “I have to suffer so much that my peoples may come together again.” Mindszenty himself, as well as the fatherly concern of Pius XII for Hungary and its persecuted primate, may very well be considered among the “great honor and many blessings” foretold by Pius X. Even a cold, unspiritual look at our account should identify some sort of link between Karl, Pius XII, and Mindszenty. For those with the gift of faith, however, it is not difficult to see that the suffering, prayers, and Christian witness of Hungary’s last king may, just perhaps, be mystically tied to the conduct of Mindszenty and Pius XII, despite occurring years after his death. This view may be supported by the words of Mindszenty from 1933, eleven years after the passing of Karl: “We must pray for our country, our nation, and our king with reverence, humility, faith, and the awareness that God’s hand plays on the organ of history and that Providence directs the fate of peoples and nations.”[110]

Moreover, there is one thing which seems to seal the relationship between these three men: The Sacred Heart of Jesus. Leo XIII’s Annum Sacrum occurred the same year as Pius XII’s priestly ordination and Karl’s first communion. The consecration of 1899 was and would remain most dear to Pacelli and Karl; as evidenced by their writings, both of them recognized the significance of the Sacred Heart for societies and nations, not simply for individuals. Mindszenty himself was ordained on the feast of the Sacred Heart, dedicated a church in honor of Karl to the Sacred Heart, was entrusted by his mother throughout his imprisonments to the Sacred Heart, and was permitted to celebrate mass for the first time during his last imprisonment on the feast of the Sacred Heart. Furthermore, the publication of Pius XII’s encyclical on the Sacred Heart Haurietis Aquas, the beatification of Innocent XI, and the Hungarian Uprising all occurring in 1956 is simply far too coincidental to not be taken note of.

Finally, as all Catholics are aware, devotion to the Sacred Heart is nothing less than love for Our Blessed Lord Himself. In this regard, there are some episodes from the lives of Karl, Pius, and Mindszenty that warrant mentioning. The first is that of Karl’s final hours and death in 1922:

[H]is most frequent pray was: “Thy Will be done!”  On the morning of his last day… He prayed aloud: “Jesus, I live for You, for You I die, dear Jesus come!”… About ten minutes before he died, he prayed: “Thy Holy Will be done. Jesus, Jesus, come! Yes-yes. My Jesus, as You will it-Jesus.” Then he whispered “Jesus” softly, and died.[111]

The final “distinguishable words” of Pius XII are reported to have been “Fiat voluntas tua” (Thy will be done), similar to that as Karl.[112] The Pope had previously been in danger of death four years earlier in 1954. In December of that year, Our Lord Himself is alleged to have appeared to him. Mother Pascalina records the following in her memoirs:

[W]hen we were kneeling around the Holy Father’s bed after saying the rosary and receiving his blessing, Pius XII said, “Now I’ve heard a voice again; there’ll be a vision!”… The sister on night duty was in the adjoining room… Hardly was everything quiet when she heard the exalted patient again praying, “Anima Christi, santifica me . . . O bone Jesu exaudi me . . . In hora mortis meae, voca me . . . et jube me venire ad Te . . .!” Over and over again he prayed it. Suddenly everything went quiet . . . The Holy Father had fallen asleep and spent an extremely good night.

When Mother Pascalina brought the Pope his breakfast the next morning, he said to her, “‘Dove sta Lei adesso, é stato il Nostro Signore!’ (Where you are standing Our Lord stood).”[113]

Mother Pascalina and others have said that Pius XII’s tiara (his office of the papacy) was like a crown of thorns during World War II, if not afterwards as well. The same has been said regarding Emperor Karl’s reign from 1916 until his 1922 death in exile. Mindszenty mentions Our Lord’s crown of thorns in conjunction with his own post-war sufferings, as is evidenced by what he reveals in his memoirs shortly before his arrest in December 1948:

I also prepared to take with me a picture sent me in November by a monk I did not know. It showed Christ with the crown of thorns and bore the inscription: Devictus vincit (“Defeated, he is victorious”)… I still had it at the time of my trial; and when in prison I was given permission to celebrate Mass, I chose this for my altar picture… [W]hen the liberators came to free me in 1956, the first thing I did was to take this picture into my hands… The first half of the inscription, “defeated,” has been the reality of the my life; the hope of victory lies in the future, in God’s hands.[114]

Mindszenty’s reflection on Devictus vincit could also be applied to Emperor Karl, if not of Pius XII, as well.

This more than suffices for a sort of conclusion. All of the various details in our account, such as the mentions of Padre Pio, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Bishop Mikes, and the other seemingly providential overlaps in the lives of Karl, Pius XII, and Mindszenty are simply meant to illustrate the merely coincidental or profoundly spiritual relationship between emperor, pope, and primate. God willing, this story may be researched further by others.

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[1] “H.I.R.H. Princes Maria Anna Galitzine,” Paul Jernberg, February 6, 2025, video, 0:50, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFbVPPjFo9c.

[2] Princess Maria Anna Galitzine, “The Spiritual Path of Blessed Karl”, Mindszenty Report, June 2021, 1, 2. https://mindszenty.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Jun2021.pdf.

[3] Leo XIII, Annum Sacrum [Encyclical Letter on Consecration to the Sacred Heart], The Holy See, May 25, 1899, sec. 11, https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_25051899_annum-sacrum.html.

[4] Ibid., sec. 2.

[5] Quoted in Alban J. Dachauer, S.J., The Sacred Heart: A Commentary on Haurietis Aquas (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1959), 2. 

[6] Annum Sacrum, sec. 14.

[7] Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus [Encyclical Letter on the Unity of Human Society], The Holy See, Oct. 20, 1939, sec. 2, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20101939_summi-pontificatus.html. 

[8] Charles A. Coulombe, Zita: Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary (Gastonia: TAN Books, 2025), 80-81. Kindle edition.

[9] Coulombe, Blessed Charles of Austria: A Holy Emperor and His Legacy (Gastonia: TAN Books, 2020), 78-79.

[10] Ibid., 52.

[11] Elisabeth Kovács, Untergang oder Rettung der Donaumonarchie?, Band 1, (Wien: Böhlau Verlag, 2004), Kapitel III, https://www.elisabethkovacs.com/neue-forschungen-zu-kaiser-karl/.

[12] Heinz von Lichem, Karl I: ein Kaiser sucht den Frieden (Tyrolia, 1996), 72, quoted in Coulombe, 75.

[13] Quoted in Blessed Karl of Austria – Novena, ed. Reinhard Knittel, excerpts Ein Kaiser Stirbt by Hans Karl Zeßner-Spitzenberg, English text Nathan Cochran, O.S.B., (The Emperor Karl League of Prayer, U.SA. and Canada), 15.

[14] Quoted in Kovács, Kapitel X.

[15] ‘Solennità’; ‘dallo stesso calice’; ‘il papa stringe al petto mons. Pacelli con evidente trasporto, abbracciandolo’; ‘La solenne consacrazione di mons. Pacelli’, L’Italia, 14 May 1917, quoted in Philippe Chenaux, “Eugenio Pacelli: Benedict XV’s Man of Peace,” in Benedict XV: A Pope in the World of the ‘Useless Slaughter’ (1914-1918), vol. 2, dir. Alberto Melloni, ed. Giovanni Cavagnini and Giulia Grossi, trans. Susan Dawson Vásquez & David Dawson Vásquez (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2020), 1382.

[16] Kovács, Kapitel X.

[17] Pius X, E Supremi [Encyclical Letter on the Restoration of All Things in Christ], The Holy See, Oct. 4, 1903, sec. 7, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-x/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-x_enc_04101903_e-supremi.html.

[18] Sister M. Pascalina Lehnert, His Humble Servant: Sister M. Pascalina Lehnert’s Memoirs of Her Years of Service to Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius XII, trans. Susan Johnson (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2014.), 3.

[19] Eugenio Pacelli to Pietro Gasparri, Munich, September 6, 1917, ASV, A.E.S., Stati Ecclesiastici, 1914–1921, pos. 1317, fasc.470, vol. 4, f. 242; and Pacelli to Gasparri, Munich, December 20, 1918, ASV, A.E.S., Baviera, terzo periodo, 1918 1921, pos. 67, ff. 15–18, quoted in Giuliana Chamedes, A Twentieth-Century Crusade: The Vatican’s Battle to Remake Christian Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 22.

[20] Kovács, Kapitel XVII.

[21] Chenaux, 1391.

[22] ‘Spero che il nunzio apostolico di Monaco, da me specialmente stimato, mons. Pacelli, possa personalmente recarsi a Roma per fare a V. S. le comuni confidenze’; AES, Stati Ecclesiastici, 470, vol. 12, Karl I to Benedict XV, 23 December 1917, quoted in Chenaux, 1391, footnote 54.

[23] Kovács, Kapitel XVII.

[24] Chenaux, 1391-1392.

[25] Ibid., 1392.

[26] Quoted in Coulombe, Blessed Charles, 250.

[27] Kovács, Kapitel XXIV.

[28] “Panel Discussion II”, Paul Jernberg, February 7, 2025, video, 31:30, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kVmdlAME3A.

[29] Quoted in “Blessed Charles IV”, Mindszenty Alapítvány, accessed July 2, 2025, https://www.mindszentyalapitvany.hu/en/canonization/hungarian-blesseds/blessed-charles-iv.

[30] Quoted in Blessed Karl of Austria – Novena, 19.

[31] Coulombe, Blessed Charles, 235.

[32] Joseph Vecsey and Phyllis Schlafly, Mindszenty the Man (St. Louis: Cardinal Mindszenty Foundation, 1972), 7.

[33] Editor’s note: Blessed Charles was both “Charles I” as Emperor and “King Charles IV” as King of Hungary.

[34] Ferenc Vasbányai, “Central Europe’s Solzhenitsyn is the elderly Hungarian cardinal.”, Otto von Habsburg Foundation, May 6, 2025, accessed July 2, 2025, https://habsburgottoalapitvany.hu/en/central-europes-solzhenitsyn-is-the-elderly-hungarian-cardinal/.

[35] József Cardinal Mindszenty, Memoirs, trans. Richard and Clara Winston (New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1974), 6, 5.

[36] Vecsey and Schlafly, 51.

[37] Quoted in Ibid., 7.

[38] Summi Pontificatus, sec. 2.

[39] Ibid., sec. 9.

[40] Mindszenty, 33.

[41] Mindszenty, 36-37.

[42] See, for example, Fr. Charles Theodore Murr, The Godmother: Madre Pascalina, A Feminine Tour de Force (Self-Published, 2017) and Benny Lai, Il Papa non eletto: Giuseppe Siri cardinale di Santa Romana Chiesa (Rome: Laterza, 1993).

[43] Quoted in Emilio Artiglieri, “Pio XII strenuo difensore del Card. Mindszenty”, June 8, 2017, https://ungheriasantasede.blogspot.com/2017/06/pio-xii-e-il-card-mindszenty-celebrati.html. Publication of English translation forthcoming.

[44] Mindszenty, 48.

[45] Victor Gaetan, “Hungary’s Secret Weapon: Catholic Nobility”, National Catholic Register, March 7, 2020, accessed July 2, 2025, https://www.ncregister.com/interview/hungary-s-secret-weapon-catholic-nobility.

[46] Mindszenty, 49.

[47] Ibid., 50.

[48] Lehnert, 150.

[49] Mindszenty, 50.

[50] Ibid., 101.

[51] Ibid., 102.

[52] Zsófia Erdélyi, Beáta Merza, and Anett Nacsa, “Wedding a ’la Habsburg 70 years ago”, Otto von Habsburg Foundation, May 10, 2021, accessed July 2, 2025, https://habsburgottoalapitvany.hu/en/wedding-a-la-habsburg-70-years-ago/.

[53] Ibid.

[54] Quoted in ibid.

[55] Dietrich von Hildebrand, My Battle Against Hitler: Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of the Third Reich, trans. and ed. John Henry Crosby with John F. Crosby (New York: Image, 2014), 219.

[56] Vecsey and Schlafly, 127.

[57] Ibid., 132-133.

[58] Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas [Encyclical Letter on Devotion to the Sacred Heart], The Holy See, May 15, 1956, sec. 99, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_15051956_haurietis-aquas.html.

[59] Ibid., sec. 16.

[60] Ibid., 121.

[61] Dachauer, v.

[62] Lehnert, 164.

[63] Paul Hofmann, “Church Beatifies Pope Innocent XI: Pius Eulogizes 17th Century Pontiff Who Assisted in Repulsing the Turks”, New York Times, October 8, 1956, https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1956/10/08/121453171.html?pageNumber=29.

[64] “Beatification Of Pope Innocent XI Held: Pointed Paths of Security, Peace, Reform For Present, — Pontiff Declares”, The Catholic Northwest Progress 59, no. 41, October 12, 1956, https://www.thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=CATHNWP19561012-01.2.3&srpos=15&e=——195-en-20–1—txIN——–.

[65] Ibid.

[66] Lehnert, 163.

[67] Haurietis Aquas, 102.

[68] Eduard Habsburg, The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times (Manchester, NY: Sophia Institute Press, 2023), 124, 125.

[69] Mindszenty, 194.

[70] Ibid., 197.

[71] Ibid., 200.

[72] Ibid., 210.

[73] Quoted in Gergely Fejérdy, “Otto von Habsburg’s 56’ Proclamation”, Otto von Habsburg Foundation, October 23, 2020, accessed July 2, 2025, https://habsburgottoalapitvany.hu/en/otto-von-habsburgs-56-proclamation/.

[74] Ibid.

[75] Pius XII, Luctuosissimi Eventus [Encyclical Letter on Urging Public Prayers for Peace and Freedom for the People of Hungary], The Holy See, October 28, 1956, sec. 1, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_28101956_luctuosissimi-eventus.html.

[76] Ibid., sec. 4-5.

[77] Pius XII, Laetamur Admodum [Encyclical Letter on Renewing Exhortation for Prayers for Peace for Poland, Hungary, and the Middle East], The Holy See, November 1, 1956, sec. 1-2, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_01111956_laetamur-admodum.html.

[78] Pius XII, Datis Nuperrime [Encyclical Letter on Lamenting the Sorrowful Events in Hungary and Condemning the Ruthless Use of Force], The Holy See, November 5, 1956, sec. 1, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_05111956_datis-nuperrime.html. 

[79] “Mindszenty’s Radio Address, November 3, 1956”, in Mindszenty, 331, 332.

[80] Mindszenty, 215.

[81] Quoted in Gergely Fejérdy, “On 1956 – From Twelve Years Later”, Otto von Habsburg Foundation, October 22, 2023, accessed July 2, 2025, https://habsburgottoalapitvany.hu/en/on-1956-from-twelve-years-later/.

[82] Mindszenty, 215-216.

[83] Lehnert, 173.

[84] Mindszenty, 212.

[85] Vecsey and Schlafly, 203.

[86] Coulombe, Blessed Charles, 249.

[87] Mindszenty, 239, 246.

[88] Quoted in Ibid., 246.

[89] Ibid., 247.

[90] Dietrich von Hildebrand, Satan at Work (St. Paul: The Remnant Press), 43.

[91] Mindszenty, 238.

[92] See, for example: Fr. Charles Theodore Murr, The Godmother: Madre Pascalina, A Feminine Tour de Force (Self-Published, 2017); Margherita Marchione, Pope Pius XII: History and Hagiography (Città del Vaticano: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, 2010); C. Bernard Ruffin, Padre Pio: The True Story (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1991 – Revised and Expanded).

[93] “A look inside Cardinal Mindszenty’s prison cell in Budapest | EWTN Vaticano,” EWTN Jubilee, July 21, 2021, video, 2:48, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elDkMMhDW_A.

[94] Renzo Allegri, Padre Pio: A Man of Hope (Ann Arbor: Servant Publications, 2000), 145.

[95] C. Bernard Ruffin, Padre Pio: The True Story (Huntington: Our Sunday Visitor, 1991 – Revised and Expanded), 415.

[96] Lehnert, 197.

[97] Mindszenty, 242.

[98] Ibid., 242.

[99] Margit Balogh, Victim of History: Cardinal Mindszenty, a Biography, trans. Andrew Gane (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2021), 616.

[100] Galitzine, “The Spiritual Path of Blessed Karl”, 1.

[101] Coulombe, Blessed Charles, 281.

[102] Victor Gaetan, “Prayers — and Royalty — Never Die: The Habsburg Dynasty”, National Catholic Register, October 21, 2019, accessed July 2, 2025, https://www.ncregister.com/news/prayers-and-royalty-never-die-the-habsburg-dynasty.

[103] Vasbányai.

[104] Warren H. Carroll, 1917: Red Banners, White Mantle (Front Royal: Christendom Press, 1981), 130.

[105] Mindszenty, 2-3.

[106] Gaetan, “Prayers — and Royalty — Never Die: The Habsburg Dynasty”.

[107] Gergely Fejérdy, “Outspoken Mindszenty – Spirituality of a Regime Change”, Otto von Habsburg Foundation, May 3, 2021, accessed July 2, 2025, https://habsburgottoalapitvany.hu/en/outspoken-mindszenty-spirituality-of-a-regime-change/.

[108] Coulombe, Zita, 300. Kindle.

[109] Quoted in Fejérdy, “Outspoken Mindszenty”.

[110] Quoted in Vasbányai.

[111] Br. Nathan Cochran, OSB., “Karl: Committed to Divine Providence”, Gebetsliga USA / Canada, accessed July 16, 2025, https://www.emperorcharles.org/committed-to-divine-providence.

[112] “‘Thy Will Be Done’ -Pius XII: Reporter Tells Of Last Words Of Late Pope”, The Monitor 101, no. 27, October 31, 1958, https://www.thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=tmon19581031-01.2.55&e=——195-en-20–21–txt-txIN——–.

[113] Lehnert, 159-160.

[114] Mindszenty, 88.

Pictured: The Venerable József Mindszenty, Cardinal-Archbishop of Esztergom, Prince-Primate of Hungary