THE LEAGUE OF PRAYERS FOR EMPEROR KARL
By Dr. Maria Habacher
In the usual course of things, if a beatification process is initiated, the person in question begins to be invoked for intercession after his saintly life and death, as the prerequisite for a process of beatification to be even considered is the exceptional answering of prayers of particular requests attributable to the intercession of the person concerned.
However, the case of the Venerable Servant of God Karl, formerly Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary and Bohemia, is different because the prayer league aligning itself with him dates back to his childhood. It came about so: Archduke Karl Franz Joseph was born on August 17, 1887 at Schloss Persenbeug on the Danube river. His parents later set up their residence in Ödenburg (Sopron) when the Archduke’s father, Archduke Otto, was stationed at the garrison there. The young Archduke first began receiving lessons in 1895, and Father Norbert Geggerle, O.P., was summoned from the Dominican community nearby to be his religious instructor. He was very pleased by his princely pupil’s receptivity to religious values and his open and enthusiastic efforts to practice a religious life. Geggerle was also active in the Ursuline Institute in his capacity as a religious instructor, and there he mentioned his prominent pupil from the Imperial House in conversation, praising him for these virtues. His conversational partner, Mother Vincentia, the director of the boarding school there, made the following unexpected and surprising comment: “Yes, he must be enveloped in prayers, for he will be emperor someday and will have to suffer greatly. He will be a special target of Hell.” Mother Vincentia was born in Graz on June 18, 1852, as Aloisia Fouland, and joined the Ursulines in Ödenburg. Mother Vincentia had the gift of making prophecies that, like this one, may have been incomprehensible at the time but later proved themselves to be true. Father Geggerle was surely astonished by this prediction and reported it to Count and Countess Wallis, who were charged with the education and formation of the Archduke. It was a sobering thought; the prediction that Archduke Karl was to become emperor was strange, and unlikely considering the line of succession at that time. But Count and Countess Wallis took the second part of Mother Vincentia’s prophecy seriously – that the young Archduke needed prayers on his behalf – in case he was doomed to the fate of suffering Mother Vincentia had prophesied. A small prayer circle was founded in 1895, recruited by Count and Countess Wallis from among the friends and acquaintances of the Archduke’s family. In addition, sisters and students from the Ursuline Convent, school, and boarding school, as well as the families of the students at home who received the message from them, must be counted among the members of this first prayer circle, the beginning of the League of Prayers for Emperor Karl.
The tragic events of June 28, 1914, resulting in the terrible World War from 1914 to 1918 changed the history of the world by causing political developments to take new directions, proved the truthfulness of Mother Vincentia’s prediction. After the murder of the heir apparent, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife Sophie, in Sarajevo, Archduke Karl became the new heir to the throne – his succession of Emperor Franz Joseph, then 84, suddenly loomed imminent. “He will become emperor,” Mother Vincentia had prophesied. The small prayer circle founded in 1895 was moved to new fervor with the realization that the truth of Mother Vincentia’s statement had been proven.
Emperor Karl made public his plans for the future strategy of his reign in his accession manifesto: “I want to do everything possible to banish the horrors and sacrifices of war without delay, to regain the sorely missed blessings of peace for my peoples.” All of the Emperor’s aspirations and endeavors in the two years given to him to reign were based on this intention.
It may be assumed that the following external events are well known: the collapse of the fronts abroad, the downfall of the monarchy at home, the removal and banishment of the Emperor and his family, and the misery and hunger that engulfed the nations of the monarchy.
On April 1, 1922, the Emperor and King departed this life at just 34 years of age. A widowed Empress with seven children, ranging in age from 9 ½ to a one-year-old (and another child expected in two months), stood at his deathbed, destitute and banished from their homeland.
The prayer circle of the small community with its roots in Ödenburg had spread further by this point, and many faithful and conscientious people from all parts of the monarchy had turned to prayer for the Emperor. The prayer circle, which had come together because of Mother Vincentia’s prediction, continued their prayers with increased fervor with the awareness of the fulfillment of the prophecy by the painful events of the Emperor’s exile and banishment from his homeland, and the subsequent mandates that treasonous and victorious powers imposed upon him. It is not possible to say how many there were; the community was not yet built upon statistically ascertainable means, although we have evidence dating from 1897 that the prayer community did have a certain form of organization. A membership card concerning affiliation with the first development of the prayer league has been preserved, but we know nothing concerning the number of people who belonged to this inner circle from its inception through the death of the Emperor. The prayer community, which found itself justified in its purpose (namely the necessity of prayer for the Emperor during his lifetime), enjoyed enormous growth in the years following the death of the Emperor and when the causes and circumstances of his death became known throughout the world.
The first word in the Emperor’s homeland regarding his life of suffering in a foreign land and his heroically Christian death, as “sub specie aeternitatis” (under the aspect of eternity), and recognizing it as an obligation of duty, was in a letter from Wilhelm Miklas (the future Federal President, who was then a member of the National Assembly and a secondary school teacher), which he wrote to Cardinal Piffl on April 1, 1923, one year after the death of the Emperor. In his Easter letter to the Cardinal, he included a request for the initiation of a beatification process for Emperor Karl. In addition to the expiation for the injustices done to the Emperor and his family, the new goal of the League of Prayers henceforth became prayers for the prompt beatification of this Servant of God, who proved himself by striving to live a truly virtuous Christian life and his expiatory sacrifice of his death.
The circle of the League of Prayers gathered around the leadership of Baron Hans Karl Zessner-Spitzenberg, Ms. Emmy Gehrig (who embodied vigor and organizational talents to a remarkable degree), and her assistant in the secretariat, Ms. Alphonsa von Klinkowström. In 1925, efforts were finally made to procure a secure position with ecclesiastical recognition for the League of Prayers for Emperor Karl. This resulted in the ecclesiastical approbation of the prayer community by suffragan bishop and vicar general in Feldkirch, the Most Rev. Sigismund Waitz, later the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg; from then on a recommended prayer for the members to pray appeared in the program of the League of Prayers. The association of members, and others who turned to Emperor Karl in prayer, were requested to report answered prayers to the secretariat of the League of Prayers. Considerable material concerning the League of Prayers spread worldwide and declarations of numerous answered prayers due to Emperor Karl’s intercession were collected. Unfortunately this archive, so valuable to the history of the League of Prayers, has not been preserved. A perilous time began for the members of the League of Prayers after Nazi Germany occupied Austria. The prayer association, certainly religious but also patriotic in nature, was a thorn in the side of the new rulers. Baron Zessner, the champion of Austrian independence and justice for the Imperial House, was arrested on March 18, 1938, barely a week after the National Socialist takeover; he was the first martyr for Austria during the Nazi period, dying in the Dachau concentration camp on August 1, 1938. Ms. Emmy Gehrig was also arrested briefly.
Understandably, the secretary, Ms. von Klinkowström, became panicked and worried that the League of Prayers’ archive would fall into the hands of the Gestapo. If that were to happen, the Gestapo would learn a great many names, and some of the members would have been threatened with arrest. In order to avoid this she consigned the archives to the flames, and thus we have no source materials concerning this second phase of the League of Prayers, from the death of Emperor Karl to 1938. The only information from this period of the League of Prayers is to be found in the Emperor Karl Commemoration Yearbooks, which were published from 1929 to 1938 by Baron Zessner-Spitzenberg.
The League of Prayers first spread through the former countries of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where it was already known, and soon thereafter to Switzerland, since Emperor Karl had become very well known and had made many friends during his exile there. Subsequently, during his exile on Madeira, the Emperor was greatly honored by the inhabitants of the island; his popularity was best expressed by the fact that according to reports 30,000 people participated in his funeral. He became “their saint,” and they make a pilgrimage to his grave at the same time as the Marian pilgrimage to the Monte. These many people must also be counted as belonging to the League of Prayers, because their intentions are the same as those that the “registered members” of the League of Prayers practice.
The League of Prayers also gained ground in southern Germany because some German Catholics clearly recognized the true greatness of this monarch, despite the propaganda spread among them characterizing the Emperor as a weakling and traitor. Members of the League of Prayers were also to be found in France, Italy, England, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Soon non-European countries were added, informed by news materials and Austrian missionaries about the character of Emperor Karl and the League of Prayers. Thus the League of Prayers gained ground in the U.S.A., Canada, and on the South American continent. By 1938, when the active operations of the League of Prayers came to a violent end, Emmy Gehrig estimated that there were 25,000 members of the League of Prayers worldwide. From 1938 to 1945, when the National Socialist regime prevented open participation in the League of Prayers and its further development in Austria, Germany, and other European countries affected by the war, the League continued to exist in Switzerland and in non-European nations where it was already established prior to 1938.
Many Austrians regretted the fact that the Emperor’s final resting-place was so far from his homeland. At the very least, many felt that a memorial to him ought to stand in Vienna; because of the numerous requests for a memorial, the League of Prayers accepted the erection of one as one of its particular tasks. An appropriate place had to be found. St. Michael’s Church was chosen, where the first side chapel to the left was made into an Emperor Karl memorial chapel. A simple memorial for the martyr-Emperor was made. On the right side wall of the chapel, a large cross in white marble was placed over gray marble panels, with a round bronze commemorative plaque surrounded by a crown of thorns and laurels mounted underneath. The inscription, intended to express the life-long objective of the man being immortalized, reads: “He sought peace and found it in God.” The memorial to Emperor Karl in St. Michael’s Church was created by Hans Schwathe (1870 – 1950), an artist then living in Vienna who was already successful during the time of the monarchy.
On Palm Sunday, April 1, 1928, the former palace chaplain, Bishop Ernst Seydl, who shared the period of exile in Switzerland with the imperial family, ceremonially dedicated the memorial. Numerous guests of honor, organizations, and associations participated throughout the dedication, and a great crowd filled the large St. Michael’s Square.
At the end of the Second World War, the League of Prayers had to be reestablished in Austria after its seven-year interruption by the Nazi period. Ms. Emmy Gehrig, who was already active before the war resumed her work with uninterrupted fervor, and, in 1947 – thanks to her practical knowledge from before and her circle of acquaintances from that time – was able to reconstruct the infrastructure and activities of the community. Karl, Count Czernin was able to secure a preliminary grant from the Diocese of Gurk-Klagenfurth for the formation of the League of Prayers as an ecclesiastic community with approbation for printing materials. However, this did not grant the organization episcopal recognition. Ms. Gehrig, due to her knowledge of previously extant groups and contacts, was able to reactivate so much, both in Austria and abroad, that by 1950 the League of Prayers numbered 9,900 members. A group was founded for Italy, particularly for the South Tirol, in November 1947; and at the meeting of the executive committee in 1952, the foundation of a group in the Federal Republic of Germany was announced. The Swiss group, which suffered no interruption during the war years, numbered 1,800 members in 1954.
A group for the rest of Italy (separate from the South Tyrol group) was founded in 1949, and one for England as well. 1950 saw the founding of groups for France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, as well as a League of Hungary in exile, which was later relocated to the U.S.A. and New Zealand by the emigration of its leading members. A group was formed in the Netherlands in 1952, and a group for Portugal and Madeira was in the building phase in 1953. A group for people expelled from their homelands was created in 1951, but was later assimilated in various new homelands.
From the beginning of the reconstruction of the League of Prayers after the war, Ms. Gehrig had again undertaken organizing joint events in the form of meetings and pilgrimages for the various members, as well as using the regular meetings of the executive committee to continue the work of the League of Prayers. At first, the members of the League of Prayers met in locations near Vienna, such as the Kahlenberg Pilgrimage Church and the Klosterneuburg Monastery (1948, 1950). The first general assembly of the League of Prayers took place in 1953 in Altötting. From that time on the presidential council meetings and the general assemblies have been held every year at varying locations.
Since 1953, the yearbook of the League of Prayers has been published, appearing annually for the membership. It reports on the League’s continuing work and events, and offers outstanding essays about Emperor Karl and various religious texts (the sermons and speeches held at each meeting) for recollection and study so that everyone can learn more about the religious side of Emperor Karl’s personality.
In 1957, reference is made to the spread of the League of Prayers in America and Canada, with 250 applications presented. In 1959, there is reference to the Spanish group’s excellent work. The German group reported 600 members in 1954, among which were several monasteries with only one signature representing hundreds of people praying.
The approbation of the League of Prayers by the Archdiocese of Vienna took place in 1957, thereby securing full recognition as an ecclesiastically approved organization. In 1964, the Emperor Karl League of Prayers for Peace among Nations was founded as an ecclesiastical association with statutes. Following the lead of the Archdiocese of Vienna, the League of Prayers was founded as an ecclesiastical association with statutes in the Diocese of Regensburg in 1967 and in the Archdiocese of Freiburg in 1970. From the time of the first establishment of the League of Prayers with ecclesiastical approval in 1925 until March 1, 1938, 10,000 reports of answered prayers had been submitted, which fell victim to destruction due to the accession of the Nazi government. In 1964, Ms. Gehrig, elected as executivepresident, was able to announce 3,325 new reports of prayers answered, and the tabulation of membership totals in the individual country groups resulting in a grand total of 32,210 members.
What the League of Prayers could not achieve before the events of 1938 (due to the limited nature of the time of its work and influence after the death of the Emperor) was comparatively rapidly achieved by the re-founded League of Prayers after the Second World War: the initiation of the process of beatification, which had been its goal since 1923 – or rather since its episcopal approbation in 1925. Thanks to the tireless determination and drive of Ms. Emmy Gehrig, who did everything possible to reach this goal for the League of Prayers, the Archdiocese of Vienna was able to petition the Vatican for the initiation of the first phase of the process in 1949. On November 3, 1949, Vatican Radio announced that the process for beatification of Emperor and King Karl of the House of Austria had begun. At the end of 1952, the vice-postulator of the Cause, Msgr. von Magyary, reported that the seven diocesan processes, serving as the basis of the information-gathering phase for the apostolic process in Rome, were nearing their end. The news followed in the transcripts of the president's meeting in 1956 that the translation of the inquest transcripts – which encompassed thousands of pages and estimated to take 2 ½ years to do – would be completed in July of 1957, and that it could be expected that the Roman process would finally begin in 1960. The current status and progress of the Cause continues to be reported in the yearbooks of the League of Prayers.
The composition of the presidential council of the League of Prayers and those participating in the process of beatification has, naturally, changed several times during the decades. The inexhaustible executive-president Emmy Gehrig persevered in her work for the League of Prayers until the very end of her life. She was present at the annual pilgrimage and presidential council meeting in 1974; she died on November 3, 1974.
In 1972, Father Stephan Sommer of Lilienfeld was named regional leader of the Lower Austria group. In 1975, his area of authority as regional leader of Lower Austria was extended to include the city of Vienna and surrounding area. The Archbishop of Vienna, Franz Cardinal König, then named him vice-president of the League of Prayers in 1976. The archives, having grown once again, were transferred to the Lilienfeld monastery where the archives and secretariat supervised by Father Stephan Sommer was located until his death on March 26, 1994. The archives of the League of Prayers were then transferred to St. Pölten in the fall of 1994. The Archbishop of Vienna, Hans Hermann Cardinal Gröer, according to the statutes of the League of Prayers, re-appointed the members of the presidential council in 1994 and named Bishop Kurt Krenn of the Diocese of St. Pölten, as president, Ms. Marianne Egger and Father Reinhard Knittel as vice-presidents, and Johannes R. Parsch as executivepresident of the League of Prayers. The following decade resulted in the preliminary conclusion of the long hoped-for beatification process, a process conducted with patience and perseverance. The decree of the Servant of God’s heroic degree of virtue was approved and signed by the pope on April 12, 2003, and the decree acknowledging the miracle submitted during the inquest was signed on December 20, 2003.
This brought the beatification process to a preliminary conclusion. The public announcement and elevation of the Venerable Servant of God of the House of Austria to one of the blessed of the Catholic Church will take place on a date to be selected by the Pope.