From Roman Christendom
Who does not recognise the face and picture of the distinguished, charming and saintly old gentleman who was the Kaiser (Emperor and Caesar) Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary from 1848 to 1916?
He led a saintly, rigorously military and piously disciplined life right up to the day of his pious and holy death.
His successor was his great-nephew, the Blessed Emperor Charles I, beatified in 2004 byBlessed Pope John Paul II, himself named Charles (Karol in Polish) after the Blessed Emperor Charles since the Pope’s father had served in the Austro-Hungarian army.
Both men, in fact, led difficult and, indeed, crucified lives. Francis Joseph lost his son, his wife and his nephew successor to assassins. Charles, who worked tirelessly for peace and an end to war, but was betrayed, forced off the throne, exiled into poverty with his wife, Empress Zita, and 8 children, toMadeira Island, and died there aged only 34 years old.
But what was life like under the old Catholic empire?
In fact, it was a glorious kaleidoscope of colour, tradition, beauty, piety and plenty that ought to be the envy of a less fortunate age.
Unfortunately, too few know about those times and many have been seduced by secularist and anti-Catholic propagandists into believing that, in those times, life was nasty, brutish and short.
In fact, the reverse is, and was, true.
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