Blessed Emperor Charles of Austria
By Ralf Siebenbürger President of Una Voce International

Blessed Emperor Charles of Austria

How else should it have been - Rome sparkled in brightest sunshine, the kind of weather that is still called in Vienna Kaiserwetter - "Emperor's weather", when on the 3rd of October Emperor and King Charles of the House of Austia was raised to the honour of the altars. Together with him, this honour fell to the French priests Pierre Vigne and Joseph-Marie Cassant, the Italian nun Maria Ludovica de Angelis and the German nun and mystic Anna Katharina Emmerick whose visions about the passion of Christ were, besides the gospels, basis for Mel Gibson's film.

The beatification process for Emperor Charles had been, as the Austrian Curia Cardinal Alfons Maria Stickler once told me, positively closed years ago for again and again came political interventions to prevent the last Emperor's formal beatification.
The ceremonies started the evening before the beatification with a devotional and a thanksgiving service at St. Paul beyond the Walls.

For the beatification ceremony itself a picturesque crowd assembled on St. Peter's Square: Knights of several Orders in their colorful robes, National Costumes from all parts of the old Habsburg monarchy, hungarian Hussards riding on horseback through the Via della Conciliazione to the church, monarchistic fraternity students from Austria in their dresses, representatives of the European nobility, among them the Ruling Prince of Liechtenstein, the Prince of Schwarzenberg and the Prince of Esterházy, and about 200 members of the Imperial family. The Austrian republic that had intervened for decades against the beatification was represented by the president of the national assembly and by the minister for health. Unfortunately, the Tyrolean Kaiserjaeger could not march into St. Peter's square with fifes and drums - thieves had stolen in the night all their musical instruments.

The procession of the Papal retinue moved out of St. Peter's into the square. From the other side, from the Arco delle Campane, arrived the Pope's car with the Pope sitting in his rolling throne. It will remain a riddle why against all traditions the retinue did not escort its sovereign. Embedded into the Missa de Angelis the beatification took place, accompanied by descriptions of the biographies of the five new Blessed.

The Emperor is now incorporated into the troop of the celestials, as before him only three emperors: Constantine the Great, Charlemagne and Henry II. The feast of Blessed Emperor Charles has been determined by the Holy Father for the 21st of October, the wedding-day of Emperor Charles and his spouse Empress Zita, born Princess of Bourbon-Parma, to whom the Blessed Emperor said at the wedding: "Now it is time for us to bring each other to heaven." We shall see if the choice of this special day is a hidden hint of the Holy See on a forthcoming beatification of Empress Zita.
The following day, the Knight of the Golden Fleece and the Austrians who were still present in Rome - the politicians as well as the Prince of Schwarzenberg had gone back to Vienna on sunday evening - assembled at St. Mary Major for a thanksgiving service.
Let's us also say: "Deo gratias!" and: "Beate Carole, ora pro nobis!"