November 20, 2009
 
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| Praying with the Kaisers |
| by John Zmirak |
| 6/10/09 |
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As I'm writing this column at the tail end of my first trip to Vienna, some of you who've read me before might expect a bittersweet love note to the Habsburgs -- a tear-stained column that splutters about Blessed Karl and "good Kaiser Franz Josef," calls this a "pilgrimage" like my 2008 trip to the Vatican, and celebrates the dynasty that for centuries, with almost perfect consistency, upheld the material interests and political teachings of the Church, until by 1914 it was the only important government in the world on which the embattled Pope Pius X could rely for solid support. Then I'd rant for a while about how the Empire was purposely targeted by the messianic maniac Woodrow Wilson, whose Social Gospel was the prototype for the poison that drips today from the White House onto the dome of Notre Dame.
And you would be right. That's exactly what I plan to say -- so dyed-in-the-wool Americanists who regard the whole of the Catholic political past as a dark prelude to the blazing sun that was John Courtenay Murray (or John F. Kennedy) might as well close their eyes for the next 1,500 words -- as they have to the past 1,500 years.
But as I bang that kettle drum again, I want to set two scenes, one from a fine and underrated movie, the other from my visit. The powerful historical drama Sunshine (1999) stars Ralph Fiennes as three successive members of a prosperous Jewish family in Habsburg Budapest. The film was so ambitious as to try portraying the broad sweep of historical change -- and, as a result, it was not especially popular. What historical dramas we moderns tend to like are confined to the tale of a single hero, and how he wreaks vengeance on the villains with English accents who outraged the woman he loved. Sunshine, on the other hand, tells the vivid story of the degeneration of European civilization in the course of a mere 40 years. The Sonnenschein family are the witnesses, and the victims, as the creaky multinational monarchy ruled by the tolerant, devoutly Catholic Habsburgs gives way through reckless war to a series of political fanaticisms -- all of them driven by some version of Collectivism, which the great Austrian Catholic political philosopher Erik von Kuenhelt-Leddihn calls "the ideology of the Herd."
From a dynasty that claimed its legitimacy as the representative of divine authority at the apex of a great, interconnected pyramid of Being in which the lowliest Croatian fisherman (like my grandpa) had liberties guaranteed by the same Christian God who legitimated the Kaiser's throne, Central Europe fell prey to one strain after another of groupthink under arms: From the Red Terror imposed by Hungarian Bolsheviks who loved only members of a given social class, to radical Hungarian nationalists who loved only conformist members of their tribe, to Nazi collaborationists who wouldn't settle for assimilating Jews but wished to kill them, finally to Stalinist stooges who ended up reviving tribal anti-Semitism. The exhaustion at the film's end is palpable: In the same amount of time that separates us today from President Lyndon Johnson, the peoples of Central Europe went from the kindly Kaiser Franz Josef through Adolf Hitler to Josef Stalin. Call it Progress. Apart from a heavily bureaucratic empire that spun its wheels preventing its dozens of ethnic minorities from cleansing each other's villages, what was lost with the fall of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy? For one thing, we lost the last political link Western Christendom had with the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire. (Its crown stands today in the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg, and for me it's a civic relic.) Charlemagne's co-creation with the pope of his day, that Empire had symbolized a number of principles we could do well remembering today: Principally, the Empire (and the other Christian monarchies that once acknowledged its authority) represented the lay counterpart to the papacy, a tangible sign that the State's authority came not from mere popular opinion, or the whims of tyrants, but an unchangeable order of Being, rooted in divine revelation and natural law.
The job of protecting the liberty of the Church and enforcing (yes, enforcing) that Law fell not to the clergy but to laymen. The clergy were not a political party or a pressure group -- but a separate Estate that often as not served as a counterbalance to the authority of the monarchy. No monarch was absolute under this system, but held his rights in tension with the traditional privileges of nobles, clergy, the citizens of free towns, and serfs who were guaranteed the security of their land. Until the Reformation destroyed the Church's power to resist the whims of kings -- who suddenly had the option of pulling their nation out of communion with the pope -- no king would have had the power or authority to rule with anything like the monarchical power of a U.S. president. Of course, no medieval monarch wielded 25-40 percent of his subjects' wealth, or had the power to draft their children for foreign wars. It took the rise of democratic legal theory, as Hans Herman Hoppe has pointed out, to convince people that the State was really just an extension of themselves: a nice way to coax folks into allowing the State ever increasing dominance over their lives. A Christian monarchy, whatever its flaws, was at least constrained in its abuses of power by certain fundamental principles of natural and canon law; when these were violated, as often they were, the abuse was clear to all, and the monarchy often suffered. In extreme cases, kings could be deposed. Today, by contrast, priests in Germany receive their salaries from the State, collected in taxes from citizens who check the "Catholic" box. So much for the independence of the clergy.
The House of Austria ruled the last regime in Europe that bound itself by such traditional strictures, which took for granted that its family and social policies must pass muster in the Vatican. By contrast, in the racially segregated America of 1914, eugenicists led by Margaret Sanger were already gearing up to impose mandatory sterilization in a dozen U.S. states (as they would succeed in doing by 1930), while Prohibitionist clergymen and Klansmen (they worked together on this) were getting ready to close all the bars. As historian Richard Gamble has written, in 1914 the United States was the most "progressive" and secular government in the world -- and by 1918, it was one of the most conservative. We didn't shift; the spectrum did.
Dismantled by angry nationalists who set up tiny and often intolerant regimes that couldn't defend themselves, nearly every inch of Franz-Josef's realm would fall first into the hands of Adolf Hitler, then those of Josef Stalin. Today, these realms are largely (not wholly) secularized, exhausted perhaps by the enervating and brutal history they have suffered, interested largely in the calm and meaningless comfort offered by modern capitalism, rendered safer and even duller by the buffer of socialist insurance. The peoples who once thrilled to the agonies and ecstasies carved into the stone churches here in Vienna can now barely rouse the energy to reproduce themselves. Make war? Making love seems barely worth the tussle or the nappies. Over in America, we're equally in love with peace and comfort -- although we've a slightly higher (market-driven?) tolerance for risk, and hence a higher birthrate. For the moment.
Speaking of children brings me to the most haunting image I will take away from Austria. I spent a whole afternoon exploring the most beautiful Catholic church I have ever seen -- including those in Rome -- the Steinhof, built by Jugendstil architect Otto Wagner and designed by Kolomon Moser. An exquisite balance of modern, almost Art-Deco elements with the classical traditions of church architecture, it seems to me clear evidence that we could have built reverent modern places of worship, ones that don't simply ape the past. And we still can. A little too modern for Kaiser Franz, the place was funded, the kindly tour guide told me in broken English, by the Viennese bourgeoisie. (Since my family only recently clawed its way into that social class, I felt a little surge of pride.) Apart from the stunning sanctuary, the most impressive element in the church is the series of stained-glass windows depicting the seven Spiritual and the seven Corporal Works of Mercy -- each with a saint who embodied a given work. All this was especially moving given the function of the Steinhof, which served and serves as the chapel of Vienna's mental hospital. (It wasn't so easy getting a tour!) The church was made exquisite, the guide explained, intentionally to remind the patients that their society hadn't abandoned them. Moser does more than Sig Freud can to reconcile God's ways to man.
We see in the chapel the spirit of Franz Josef's Austria, the pre-modern mythos that grants man a sacred place in a universe where he was created a little lower than the angels -- and an emperor stands only in a different spot, with heavier burdens facing a harsher judgment than his subjects. No wonder Franz Josef slept on a narrow cot in an apartment that wouldn't pass muster on New York's Park Avenue, rose at 4 a.m. to work, and granted an audience to any subject who requested it. He knew that he faced a Judge who isn't impressed by crowns.
As we left the church, I asked the guide about a plaque I'd seen but couldn't quite ken, and her face grew suddenly solemn. "That is the next part of the tour." She explained to me and the group the purpose of the Spiegelgrund Memorial. It stands in the part of the hospital once reserved for what we'd call "exceptional children," those with mental or physical handicaps. While Austria was a Christian monarchy, such children were taught to busy themselves with crafts and educated as widely as their handicaps permitted. The soul of each, as Franz Josef would freely have admitted, was equal to the emperor's. But in 1939, Austria didn't have an emperor anymore. It dwelt under the democratically elected, hugely popular leader of a regime that justly called itself "socialist." The ethos that prevailed was a weird mix of romanticism and cold utilitarian calculation, one which shouldn't be too unfamiliar to us. It worried about the suffering of lebensunwertes Leben, or "life unworthy of life"--a phrase we might as well revive in our democratic country that aborts 90 percent of Down's Syndrome children diagnosed in utero. So the Spiegelgrund was transformed from a rehabilitation center to one that specialized in experimentation. As the Holocaust memorial site Nizkor documents:
In Nazi Austria, parents were encouraged to leave their disabled children in the care of people like [Spiegelgrund director] Dr. Heinrich Gross. If the youngsters had been born with defects, wet their beds, or were deemed unsociable, the neurobiologist killed them and removed their brains for examination. . . .
Children were killed because they stuttered, had a harelip, had eyes too far apart. They died by injection or were left outdoors to freeze or were simply starved.
Dr. Gross saved the children's brains for "research" (not on stem cells, we must hope). All this, a few hundred feet from the windows depicting the Works of Mercy. Of course, they'd been replaced by the works of Modernity.
We're much more civilized about this sort of thing nowadays, as the guests at Dr. George Tiller's secular canonization can testify. In true American fashion, our genocide is libertarian and voluntarist, enacted for profit and covered by insurance.
I will think of the children of the Spiegelgrund tomorrow, as I spend the morning in the Kapuzinkirche, where the Habsburg emperors are buried -- and the Fraternity of St. Peter say a daily Latin Mass. As I pray the canon my ancestors prayed and venerate the emperors they revered, I will beg the good Lord for some respite from all the Progress we've enjoyed.
Blessed Karl I, ora pro nobis. John Zmirak is author, most recently, of the graphic novel The Grand Inquisitor and is Writer-in-Residence at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. He writes weekly for InsideCatholic.com. Readers have left 24 comments. It has always been a mystery to me how Austria, the land of Mozart, beautiful Salzburg, cultured Vienna, etc could be taken over by the Nazis. The Austrians may speak German and be ethnic Germans, but they are not militaristic Prussians. They have a history and tradition of music, art, beautiful churches, and a landscape that is breathtaking. They also make and drink some very fine beer. How could such people descend into madness? Perhaps it is beyond human understanding? Written by Austin Wonderful, thought provoking essay. Makes me want to hop a plane for Vienna for nothing more than to see the Steinhof. Austin don't you think the Austrians (like most of the western world) became guilty of worshiping the gods of Materialism/ Politics instead of the God of the Ages? When civilizations who formally produced the music of Bach, Beethoven begin churning out stuff like "My Hoe Will Set Me Free" (circa Moscow 1925,now re-released as a rap song) something intrinsic and fundamental has gone very wrong. Why people choose a system that makes gods of themselves goes way back to Adam and Eve. More of the same please, JZ! Written by pammie Sorry--substitute "formerly" for "formally". Written by pammie What a remarkable column, Dr. Z. Fantastic. There is far too much here to comment upon but this one sentence; No wonder Franz Josef slept on a narrow cot in an apartment that wouldn't pass muster on New York's Park Avenue, rose at 4 a.m. to work, and granted an audience to any subject who requested it. says volumes about the quality of some of the Christian Monarchs. When I read it I was reminded of how The Cortes told King Charles to take a hike when they refused to vote him money for one of his foreign military adventures. Now, just try to imagine an America President sleeping on a cot or try to imagine the Republican Controlled National Legislature refusing to fund Bush's military stupidities. Written by I am not Spartacus On a similar theme, one of your long-time friends and colleagues as well as a neighbor in Richmnd, New Hampshire, has posted an article on "The Hands of the King" at http://catholicism.org/ad-rem-no-108.html#more-10689 Written by Tom Dear John, Your old confederate here, thanking you for the excellent piece. It reminds me of the time you confessed to me how sad you were every time you got to the end of The Rise And Fall Of The Habsburg Monarchy, hoping each time the ending would be different! And this, on feast of a Royal Saint (Margaret), who mixed in her veins the blood royal of the Holy Roman German Empire with that of the last of the Saxon Kings of England, was raised in the Court of Saint Stephen of Hungary, and whose daughter, "Good Queen Maude" -- Saint Matilda -- reunited the Saxon lineage to the English Throne of their Norman conquerors. But we've gotten beyond all that tyranny. Now we have the "tyranny of the masses," or of the oligarchs. Progress, indeed! Thank you again for the excellent piece, John. Please pray for me at the holy places as your pilgrimage continues.  Written by Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. It has always been a mystery to me how Austria, the land of Mozart, beautiful Salzburg, cultured Vienna, etc could be taken over by the Nazis. The Austrians may speak German and be ethnic Germans, but they are not militaristic Prussians. — AustinSuch prejudice! Never wondered why the National Socialist German Workers Party got its start and earliest support in Catholic Bavaria, eh? Or how anti-Prussian prejudice along with radical Marxist-socialist political agitation centered in "Red Berlin" paved the way for the National Socialists? Or why, despite the wars of France's Louis XIV, the French Revolution government's foreign conquests, Napoleonic France, Napoleon III's War of 1870, the French nursing of grudges against Prussia, the French military doctrine of élan, two world wars, the Algerian war, and the Indochina war, most folks don't speak of "the militaristic French"? Written by Micha Elyi ...this one sentence; — I am not SpartacusNo wonder Franz Josef slept on a narrow cot in an apartment that wouldn't pass muster on New York's Park Avenue, rose at 4 a.m. to work, and granted an audience to any subject who requested it. ... Now, just try to imagine an America President sleeping on a cot... While President, George W. Bush cleared brush in 100-degree Texas heat. So, I can easily imagine President George W. Bush sleeping on a cot. Broadway Obama? No way. ...or try to imagine the Republican Controlled National Legislature refusing to fund Bush's military stupidities. Ha ha - as if a slim majority of Republicans could "control" America's national legislature in the manner you imply, Not-Spartacus. ![[smiley=laugh]](http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/components/com_jreactions/custom/templates/blog/smileys/smiley_laugh.gif) Or that Bush engaged in "military stupidities." Have you forgotten all the Democrat politicians who blasted Bush for inaction prior to U.S. intervention in Iraq? Uh huh. Oh yeah, Afghanistan - I recall there were Democrats upset that Bush wasn't doing enough on that front too. Democrats even led a charge to reinstate a military draft crying that America needs a bigger army and Democrats did it more than once, too. Now there's your "military stupidities." Fortunately, back then American benefitted from Republican control of the national legislature; those Democrat militaristic ambitions were voted down. Written by Micha Elyi Terrific column, JZ. Unreconstructed Southerners know that had the South (States' Rights) won, the grasping, centralizing power of the feds would be far less today. Your observations bring to mind a reality that becomes clearer daily--unchecked power despises and seeks to destroy all authentic authority. Written by MJ Anderson DR. Z. This is a smashing column and it really makes me hunger for more info. Please tell us 3 or 4 books we could buy (or, being American, steal) so as to learn ourselves about The Habsbrugs and the Empire. Written by I am not Spartacus Yes, the French were very militaristic in the early 19th century, overrunning most of Continental Europe. Napoleon overreached with his invasion of Russia, which destroyed Le Grande Armee and was the begining of the end for French military aggression. France did dabble in colonialism, and even intervened in Mexico in the 1860's, which ended in disaster. Perhaps people typically do not think of the French as militaristic due to the fact that their military adventures have not been very successful? Zut Alors! Napoleon was a long time ago, while German military adventures are more recent. The British colonialized much of the world, and yet hey are not thought of as "militaristic." Curious. Written by Austin @ MJ Anderson: Good point. Monarchists and Unreconstructed Southerners have a lot in common. One of those is the ideal of a society with a strong sense of tradition-based hierarchy and rootedness in land, family, and custom, as opposed to messianic bureaucracies trying to save the world. Written by Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M. Too bad, in the case of the American South, it had to be joined at the hip to slavery, a distinctive which the Hapsburgs managed to avoid. Written by Richard A Ha ha - as if a slim majority of Republicans could "control" America's national legislature in the manner you imply, Right. The Republicans only had control of the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Written by I am not Spartacus My Czech and Slovak friends are unanimous-the end of this empire meant freedom (not least of which was religious freedom), a free press, free instruction in native languages, and no nobility to pay. The fact that the Germans (including the Austrians), Hungarians and Poles ganged up on them and dismembered them (from 1938-1945) doesn't mean that they weren't able to live by themselves, only that their former colonial overlords weren't able to handle the fact that their former serfs, cooks and postmen were running a fairly good country, without their help and without 'Holy' crowns of St. Steven, 'Holy' Roman emperors, anointings, prince-archbishops, 'pure' bloodlines (that lead to more than one aristocrat being born more vegetable than animal) and ridiculous uniforms. Sorry that Europe was convulsed in blood and millions (including thousands of Slovaks, Czechs and others) died, but bringing the Hapsburgs back-or their empire-would be at best pointless. Written by brad evans Not all Czechs oppose the Habsburg monarchy: http://www.korunaceska.org/ And yes, the world does need Crowns and Empires and Anointings. European civilization is sinking without them. Written by Theodore Harvey Besides, "Freedom" is overrated. I've lived in the United States all my life and find Americanism boring and alienating. Written by Theodore Harvey The Czechs who support a return to monarchy occupy precisely the same size space in their country's politics as does the Prohibition Party in ours. The Swiss seem to be doing fine without anointings or crowns. Italy, troubled sure, but nobody sane wants someone like Pius IX back, kidnapping children on suspicion that someone's secretly baptized them or screeching about Masonic conspiracies. "Americanism" could be better defined. Please do so. Millions come here, every year, because the US is a lot less exciting than the countries they left: cheaper food, easier to find a job, easier to get an education. I can see how now having pursuits more aristocratic than squirrel hunting might appall fastidious palates, but I'm sure you'll discover your local library-or even go on a date! Written by brad evans Czech monarchists may be outnumbered, but that doesn't mean they're wrong. "Truth is not determined by a majority vote," as I believe the present Pope once observed. The Czech monarchists are the ones who are in touch with the true spirit of their beautiful and ancient country, a kingdom for all of its history until 1918, lawfully inherited by the Habsburgs in 1526 with the death of the young childless Louis II. I have no objection to Switzerland being a republic, since Switzerland has been a republic since its founding and does not owe its existence to the evil anti-Christian and anti-monarchical revolutionary movement that began in the late 18th century. It is the other European republics I cannot accept. If I had my way, Switzerland and San Marino would be the only republics in Europe, unless Italy were to be divided again, in which case the Venetian and Genoan republics would also be perfectly acceptable as long as the Neapolitan/Sicilian, Tuscan, and Sardinian monarchies were also restored. I'm Anglo-Catholic, not Roman Catholic, so I'll leave it to others to defend the much-maligned Bl. Pius IX. I have no interest in attempting an extensive discussion of Americanism; plenty of material on that is available on the web. (See Mr. Zmirak's second paragraph.) But I cannot understand how any Roman Catholic--if indeed Mr. Evans is one--could not muster at least some nostalgic sympathy for the Old Order embodied by the Habsburgs, just as I cannot understand how any of my fellow Anglicans could not love the British monarchy as much as I do. The pageantry and panoply of royalty have a unique quality unmatched by republics that appeals to the deepest aspirations of the unindoctrinated human psyche--hence, for example, the popularity of the essentially monarchist and reactionary "Lord of the Rings" movies. Monarchy is intrinsically catholic; presidential republicanism is inevitably tied to the modern world's callous secular & egalitarian destruction of all that is beautiful and holy. I am sorry that so many modern men are apparently incapable of appreciating that. I for one will never give up on Restoration, and will never give in to the diabolical spirit of 1776 and 1789, no matter how unpopular that makes me in some quarters. Long live His Imperial & Apostolic Majesty Otto I, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary & Bohemia! Written by Theodore Harvey Otto, the one who claimed that "the Pentagon, as it now stands, is an essentially Jewish-controlled institution"? Truth may not be determined by majority vote-but politics usually is. To claim that the Czechs (and Slovaks)could be inherited is grotesque: these are people, not a fishing pole or rocking chair. Anyone who kidnaps a child and holds that child loses the right to be called 'Blessed'. Pius was a reactionary in a white dress. He had to recruit mostly from outside 'his' territories; the natives were fed up with censorship and clergy control of their lives. So he went to places like Ireland, Quebec, Croatia, Belgium, where the people were more papist than the pope. The Hapsburgs were better than the Nazis-they were also much older and weaker. Read how they 'reconverted' "their" Bohemian lands back to catholicism and then tell me that the Czechs should take them back. Romanticism is an idiotic approach to politics. Pageantry is best admired by those who admire drag shows. Written by brad evans The romanticism that some American Catholics have for the Hapsburgs never ceases to amuse me. The defining characteristic of the Hapsburgs was not unwavering devotion to the Church but rather to their dynasty. As monarchs go, they weren't the worst of the lot, but they certainly had more than their fair share of crowned dunderheads. Their multi-ethnic state was an accident of history that fell to pieces after World War I to the intense joy of most of the former subjects of the Hapsburgs. It is one with Nineveh and Tyre and why any American Catholics should waste any time mourning it beats me. Written by Donald R. McClarey I'd gladly take any Habsburg "crowned dunderhead" over either George W. Bush or Barack Obama, or any contemporary European president. Mourning the loss of the Habsburg Empire is a better use of time than celebrating the sin of Treason as millions of brainwashed Americans will do this Saturday. Written by Theodore Harvey "The defining characteristic of the Hapsburgs was not unwavering devotion to the Church but rather to their dynasty." Well, but of course! Such self-interest is alien to parliamentarians and presidents! Oh, wait.... Written by JonathanR. "Democracy is the worst form of government--except for all the others": Winston Churchill. It should be obvious to all that the U.S. is rapidly degenerating itself into oblivion. That being said, to see the Holy Roman Empire as having been anywhere closer to utopia, one must surely be wearing rose-colored glasses. Or opaque ones. Once the H.R.E. is reconstituted per Otto von Habsburg's vision (set forth in his book,"The Social Order of Tomorrow"), it will become an anti-semitic nightmare, per Ives Dupont's "Catholic Prophecy". How about a true third way--the Kingdom on earth of the Messiah? Written by Al Louis |
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