Erik Curren
St. Robert Southwell Writing Group
“The decisive task of Christians consists in seeking, recognizing and following God’s will in all things,” said Pope John Paul II in October 2004 when he beatified a most unusual Catholic monarch. “The Christian statesman, Charles of Austria, confronted this challenge every day.”
When I first learned that the Catholic Church had recognized Charles—known to history as Kaiser Karl I of the House of Habsburg, the last ruler of Austria-Hungary—I was surprised. During World War I, Karl took the helm of a nation whose armed forces fought alongside Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany and against the entente of Britain, France, and the United States. As an American, I wondered: Why should I venerate a wartime enemy of my country?
So, I read up on Karl. And I discovered surprising things.
First, though he led his nation in war, Karl also campaigned for peace. When fighting broke out in 1914, then-Archduke Karl answered the call to military command, but he always thought the war was a mistake. “To his eyes, war appeared as ‘something appalling,’” said Pope John Paul II.
Two years later, when the aged emperor Franz Josef died in November 1916, Karl inherited the throne for which he was prepared along with the war that he never wanted. Once in office, Karl immediately tried to stop the fighting. He was the only leader of a combatant nation to embrace the peace plan of Pope Benedict XV, and Karl negotiated with the Western powers until the last few weeks of the conflict. Tragically, his peace overtures were blocked by leaders of both sides determined to fight to total victory.
Meanwhile, Karl did what he could to reduce the war’s barbarity. He opposed unrestricted submarine warfare, stopped the mining of harbors, and prohibited his troops from shelling civilian towns or using poison gas in combat.
For these efforts, Karl became known as the Peace Emperor. And for his innovative and compassionate work to reduce suffering on the home front, Karl was also called the People’s Emperor.
“His chief concern was to follow the Christian vocation to holiness also in his political actions. For this reason, his thoughts turned to social assistance,” said John Paul II. Karl used his brief two years in office to establish a social ministry, perhaps the world’s first government agency supporting veterans, the unemployed, widows, orphans, and the poor—more than fifteen years before FDR’s New Deal in the U.S. During winter, Karl also sent his own carriages to deliver coal to heat the households of Vienna.
Karl was an active Christian who invited government officials and military officers to pray with him whether in the office or on the battlefield. Devoted to the angels, Karl made St. Michael patron saint of the imperial army. A loving family man, Karl raised eight children with his wife, the empress Zita.
After the war, Karl was exiled to the Portuguese island of Madeira. There in 1922, weakened by the many sacrifices he had made to serve his people, Karl died of pneumonia at age thirty-four. His last words were prayer: “Thy Holy Will be done. Jesus, Jesus, come! Yes-yes. My Jesus, as You will it—Jesus.”
I now see that Karl was not really an enemy of the United States during World War I. Quite the opposite. If American leaders had heeded Karl’s calls for peace, our nation and many others could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths in the war’s final bloody months. An early peace would also have allowed Europe to avoid the harsh terms imposed by the victors in the Treaty of Versailles, with its terrible consequences: economic depression, the rise of dictators, and even the outbreak of World War II.
More and more Americans seem to agree that Karl is worth venerating. The number of shrines to Blessed Karl in the United States has doubled over the last decade or so, with twenty-five sites as of October 2024.
Karl reminds me that the line between good and evil runs not along the borders of nations but through the hearts of all people.
Of course, I will never face the challenges of a monarch and head of state. Yet Karl’s life provides me an example of service, courage, self-sacrifice, and devotion to God, whatever challenges life brings. A failure in worldly terms, Karl succeeded where it counted more, in his spiritual life. In a competitive age where human worth is too often measured in wealth, power, and fame, Karl’s life encourages me to seek favor less in the eyes of the world than in the eyes of God.
. . .
Biographical details are from The Emperor Karl League of Prayer.