Karl and Zita - The novelist Anatole France said, “No one will ever persuade me that the war could not have been ended long ago. The Emperor Charles offered peace. There is the only honest man who occupied an important position during the war, but he was not listened to… The Emperor Charles had a sincere desire for peace, so everyone hates him.”

The “Fairy-Tale” Prince and the Five Surprises

by Stephen Masty

He was a real prince but the fairy-tale elements are just as true. The five surprises unfolded as this exceptional man was swept from relative obscurity to legendary romance and glamour, from terrorist murder to military valour, from unrivalled power to daunting challenge, to heart-rending defeat and then glory beyond our dreams. You couldn’t make it up.

Our handsome fairy-tale prince was born in 1887; three years after U.S. President Harry Truman and five before J.R.R. Tolkien. So Archduke Karl von Habsburg comes neither from chivalry’s High Middle Ages nor a closer distant past. He lived within the lifetimes of people you met; in historical terms he is one of us.

While his great-uncle was the Emperor Franz Josef I of the vastAustro-Hungarian Empire, Karl wasn’t next in line to the throne and Habsburg princelings were hardly scarce: some of Karl’s aristocratic elders merely ran cultural festivals between attending Vienna’s many elegant balls. Karl was a keen science student but chose an army career. He served well in peacetime, studying law and political science in his off-hours, often in nondescript garrison-towns. In 1911 he married the winsome Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma and the first secret emerged: beside the usual longings of newlyweds and both being royalty, they shared another taste in private, something uncommon and intense.

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Here comes the first surprise: on the morning after the wedding, the groom turned to his bride and declared; “Now we must help each other to get to Heaven.” Not to win military battles or accede to thrones, or revel in luxury or bask in the world’s most elegant High Society with their movie-star good looks; for even coming from religious families, Karl and Zita were uncommonly committed Christians.

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Let us pray for them, and they for us.

Note: the website for the canonization of The Blessed Karl is here; for the beatification of The Servant of God Zita here. Both feature a wealth of biographical material, news, prayers, and more. The volunteers’ research, paperwork and small organizational expenses cannot be sustained without donations.

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