Catholic Culture Publishes Article on Blessed Karl’s Coronation
This article by Thomas V. Mirus highlights Blessed Karl and lessons taken from his HungarianCoronation. It appeared on Catholic Culture on November 18, 2024.
Lessons from Blessed Karl’s Coronation
While traveling in Austria recently, I read Charles Coulombe’s book Blessed Charles of Austria: A Holy Emperor and His Legacy. Charles (or Karl) was the last sovereign of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 2004; his wife Empress Zita has been named a Servant of God. Their story is deeply moving.
Blessed Karl ruled during a profound crisis of European history. His uncle, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, had been heir to Kaiser Franz Joseph. Franz Ferdinand’s assassination led to Karl inheriting both the throne and the Great War in 1916. A brave soldier and a man of peace, deeply devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and profoundly aware of the responsibilities of kingship, Karl worked hard to serve the peoples historically united under the Habsburg crowns, and to bring an end to the war as quickly as possible.
While Karl ultimately enjoyed the greatest possible victory—becoming a saint—the story of his life on earth is a tragedy of epic proportions, as his work for peace was continually thwarted by blunders and betrayals not only from other world leaders, but from his own officials. Despite his best efforts, he saw the collapse of his 700-year-old empire and, in many ways, the end of Europe as a whole. Having lost everything, he died in exile at the age of 35 (Empress Zita lived for several more decades). His sainthood is more of a testament to his having suffered well than to any earthly success.
One of the most striking passages in Blessed Karl’s biography describes the coronation liturgy in which he became King of Hungary on December 30, 1916, at the Matthias Church in Budapest (see picture). The contents of the ritual should make us think more deeply about the proper relation between religion and political rule. Before making my own comments, I will quote at length from Coulombe’s book about this ceremony and the spirit in which Bl. Karl entered into it.
Blessed Karl (Károly IV of Hungary) taking his coronation oath at Holy Trinity Column outside Matthias Church, Budapest, 30 December 1916.
As Cardinal Csernoch, who performed the ceremony would later recall:
‘He prepared himself conscientiously for this great ceremony. He examined every detail and pondered the inner meaning of it all. Like a priest before his ordination—that was how devout and prayerful the King was before his coronation.’
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Before the coronation actually got under way, Charles knelt before the cardinal at the top step of the high altar and swore to defend the Church. He then lay prostrate before the altar, just as priests do who are about to be ordained; during that time, the “Litany of the Saints” was chanted. Csernoch anointed him on the right hand and wrist, and between his shoulders in the small of his back, after which the ancient coronation mantle was placed around his shoulders. High Mass then began…When the Graduale had been chanted, the cardinal presented Charles with the sword of St. Stephen, praying in Latin:
‘Accept this sword through the hands of bishops, who unworthy, yet consecrated by the authority of the holy apostles, impart it to you by divine ordinance for the defense of the faith of the holy Church and remember the words of the psalmist, who prophesied, saying, “Gird yourself with your sword upon your thigh,” O most mighty one, that by it you may exercise equity, powerfully destroying the growth of iniquity and protect the holy Church of God and his faithful people. Pursue false Christians, no less than the unfaithful, help and defend widows and orphans, restore those things which have fallen into decay and maintain those things thus restored, avenge injustice and confirm good dispositions, that doing this, you may be glorious in the triumph of justice and may reign forever with the Savior of the world, whose image you bear, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, forever and ever. Amen.’
Sword in hand, the new king cut the air in three directions to show his readiness to defend both Church and State. Then the holy crown was placed upon Charles’s head, with the prayer:
‘Receive the crown of the King, which is placed on your head by our hands—unworthy hands, but yet the hands of Bishops. In the name of the Fa + ther, and of the S + on, and of the Holy + Spirit. May you understand it to signify the glory of holiness, honor and the work of bravery, and may you know that through it you are a participant in our ministry, so that, as we are understood to be pastors in interior matters and the guiders of souls, so you in external matters may assist us as a worshipper of God and a strenuous defender of the Church of Christ against all adversity; and that you may always serve as a useful governor and a profitable ruler of the realm that has been given to you by God and committed to your rule through the office of the blessings of us who act in the place of the Apostles and all the Saints; so that, adorned with the jewels of virtue among the glorious heroes, and crowned with the prize of eternal happiness, you may glory forever with our Redeemer and Savior Jesus Christ, whose name and authority we believe you bear.’
Csernoch then placed the scepter in Charles’s hand with the prayer:
‘Accept the Rod of virtue and equity. Learn to respect the pious and to intimidate the proud; guide the straying; lend a hand to the fallen; repress the proud and raise the humble, that our Lord Jesus Christ may open to you the door, he who said of himself, “I am the Door, whoever enters by me, by me shall be saved,” and let he who is the Key of David and the Scepter of the House of Israel, be your helper, he who opens and no one may shut, who shuts and no one may open; who brings the captive out of prison, where he sits in darkness and the shadow of death, that in all things you may imitate him, of whom the Prophet David said, “Your seat, O God, endures forever; a rod of righteousness is the rod of your kingdom. You love justice and hate iniquity, therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness above your fellows.”’
Then the orb, representing Christ’s rule over all the earth and the king’s ruler over his peoples as Christ’s deputy, was put in hand without any special prayer.
Finally, the cardinal led him to the throne and placed him on it, saying:
‘Be steadfast and hold fast to that place of which you have become heir by succession from your forefathers, now delegated to you by the authority of Almighty God and transmitted to you by us and all the bishops and servants of God and when you see the clergy draw near to the holy altar, remember to give them appropriate honor that the Mediator between God and humanity may confirm you in this royal position as the mediator between clergy and laity and that you may be able to reign with Jesus Christ, our Lord, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen.’
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Zita recalled: ‘The thing that impressed both of us most about the whole ceremony was the moving liturgical side of it all—especially the oaths that the King took at the altar before his anointing to preserve justice for all and strive for peace. This sacred pledge given in the cathedral was exactly the political program he wanted to carry out from the throne. We both felt this so strongly that hardly any words were necessary between us.’
One hopes that, even for those Catholics unfamiliar with “the traditional Catholic doctrine on the moral duty of men and societies toward the true religion and toward the one Church of Christ”—the phrase by which Vatican II alluded to and upheld the teaching of encyclicals such as Leo XIII’s Immortale Dei—the beauty and goodness of this ritual speaks for itself. Surely we can agree that it is better for rulers to humble themselves before God’s altar than for them not to do so—for them to be, as it were, forcibly reminded that they have duties towards the Church, and that, even if they are not Catholic, they only have authority because God gave it to them. Is it not regrettable that the most fundamental truths about authority are now left unspoken in the key moments constituting our political life?
You would think all Catholics could agree on something that seems so obviously good, edifying and conducive to God’s glory. Yet many modern Catholics are deeply uncomfortable with state recognition of the true religion. They have convinced themselves that the Church’s teaching on the relation between spiritual and temporal authority has changed. They would challenge the notion that it is ideal, let alone obligatory, for governments to recognize religious truth.
I suggest that if this is controversial to us, something is seriously missing in our Catholic sensibilities. It really is this simple: to deny that it is ideal for governments and rulers to officially acknowledge Catholic truth is to deny that Christ should rule over every aspect of human life. For this reason, on the level of principle, the American constitutional principle forbidding the establishment of religion may be more fundamentally anti-Catholic than the British law forbidding the throne to Catholic individuals.
Catholic proponents of state neutrality toward religious truth can maintain their position only at the cost of a typically modern compartmentalization and fragmentation of life. They will defend themselves by saying that they still believe rulers and politicians should, as persons, be influenced by their faith, but that this need not entail official recognition. They say we can have, for instance, a president who personally submits to the authority of the Catholic Church, and is influenced by it so far as the natural law is concerned, just as anyone should in any line of work, but it is not desirable that as president he recognize the authority of Christ. This, it seems to me, is like saying that when a family prays together, the father should pray with his wife and children merely as one Christian among others, but not precisely in his role as head of the family.
While we must distinguish between spiritual and temporal authority, the state cannot be separated from religion, because the ruler’s authority comes from God, and not some indeterminate god, but the only God of revelation, Jesus Christ. As D.C. Schindler has pointed out, when the state claims with faux-humility that it is incompetent to “decide” which religion is true, it actually usurps spiritual authority by attempting to set the boundaries of its own power rather than deferring to a higher principle. Thus we inevitably give to Caesar more than belongs to Caesar, and give to God less than belongs to God.
A ruler or lawmaker either acknowledges the source of his authority, performing his duties to the state as duties towards God, or he fails to acknowledge it, which is already to rebel against God and cut himself off from the source of his authority. If he truly owns that Christ is King of the social order, no facets excepted, then he will not be satisfied to believe this personally as one Christian among others—he will be zealous to acknowledge this precisely in his capacity as one to whom Christ has delegated authority. He will see this public and official confession of faith as most desirable, and only concern for maintaining the peace in a religiously mixed population might hold him back.
And since the source of authority does not change according to the varying beliefs or piety of those who wield it, there is no reason that the acknowledgment of Christ and His Church should depend on the whim of whoever is currently in office. Rather, the service to truth owed by men and societies demands that acknowledgment of the true faith in its real relation to temporal authority be permanently inscribed in the laws and rituals of the state.
It is likewise because of this service owed to truth that we cannot concede these principles to be irrelevant because they seem to be impractical in the modern American context. Whether or not our rulers and fellow citizens are prepared to acknowledge the true relation between spiritual and temporal authority—whether we live under godless communism or godless liberal democracy—as Catholics we are bound to affirm it no less than Blessed Karl did. Without this heaven to aim for, we will not even make it to purgatory, politically speaking, meaning that even the little influence we have over politics will be squandered.
What is more, truth never goes to waste in enlarging the soul—an enlargement needed above all by the merely practical man. When we confess the subordination of human authority to divine authority, we unveil the true beauty of how God has ordered His creation. Contemplation of this firmament trains our eye for what will glorify God in every field. It reminds us that there is no aspect of life we may hold back from Him.
Thomas V. Mirus is Director of Podcasts for CatholicCulture.org, hosts The Catholic Culture Podcast, and co-hosts Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast. See full bio.