Category Archives: Christendom

On Pope Leo XIII and the Legitimacy of Authorities

25 Friday Aug 2017

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“Did not Pope Leo XIII declare, in an Encyclical to French Catholics, that a new authority might, for the sake of the Common Good, receive the right to rule, when the rightful authorities have been removed and are no longer available, and a chaos has arisen so that the maintenance of order requires that new powers be established?

This is to be answered, new legitimacy comes from such emergency power only when the old Authorities and their rightfully appointed successors are not only removed from power, but no longer actually exist. In that case the path lies open, indeed it creates a new necessity, for the establishment of a new legitimate authority.  So long as the rightful Authorities are merely hindered and incapacitated, the emergency order is only permitted as an emergency order, that is to say as a curator or guardian, for so long as the rightful Authority is repressed and its Restoration hindered. However it must not set itself in opposition to this. It is therefore merely legal.”

-Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg, Legitimität und Legalität

(The full text of Dr. H.K. von Zeßner-Spitzenberg’s Legitimität und Legalität is in the process of being translated and will be published in full on The War for Christendom)

By the Grace of God

18 Friday Aug 2017

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This era no longer wants us! This era wants to create independent nations-states! People no longer believe in God. The new religion is nationalism. Nations no longer go to church. They go to national associations. The Monarchy, our Monarchy, is founded on piety, on the faith that God chose the Hapsburgs to rule over so and so many Christian peoples. Our Emperor is a secular brother of the Pope, he is His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty; no other is as apostolic, no other majesty in Europe is as dependent on the Grace of God and on the faith of the peoples in the Grace of God… The Emperor of Austria-Hungary must not be abandoned by God.

-Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March

Shadows of the Double-Headed Eagle

07 Monday Aug 2017

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A recent interesting article by Gerald J. Russello published on First Things, recalls the Pan-European vision of Stefan Zweig and its origins in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Though it goes deep into the problem of European Identity and Nationalism, it can only provide the shadows of hints of the solution. Like Zweig himself the article is “pessimistic about the future, but… equally convinced that the European idea remained possible.” Yet as to what the idea truly is, it remains silent. True the last concrete links to the Sacrétemporal Order have been severed, many of them centuries ago. Still the intangible remains, those who have killed the body have not killed the soul of Catholic Civilization. Indeed, the article itself asserts;

no single cultural force has been able to substitute for empire, language, or faith.

These are the three foundations of European Civilization, the Universal Catholic Faith, the Universal Language of Reason and Philosophy, and the Universal Holy Roman Empire. No cultural secularism or nationalism can replace the unity that they bring to the West, and those that have tried have only succeed in bringing wanton bloodshed and tragedy.

The Honor of the Austrian Emperors

03 Thursday Aug 2017

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This War is a scourge on Mankind; I see, with a broken heart, how it threatens to strike against the lives and possessions of thousands of my loyal subjects; I feel deeply this very moment the severe trial which this war is for my Empire, which is progressing on the path of ordered internal development, and for this requires perpetuity of peace. But the heart of the monarch must remain silent, where only honor and duty have command. Dire times have already come and passed over this Crown, which I inherited unblemished from my ancestors; the Glorious History of Our Fatherland gives witness that, when the shadows of Revolution which threaten the Highest treasures of Mankind, threatens to spread over the whole World, Divine Providence often used its servant the Sword of Austria to disperse the shadows with its lightning. We stand again on the eve of such a time, when the Revolution against all of existence is no longer merely proclaimed by sects but sent into the world by the very Thrones of power.

When I am forced to grasp the sword, it so receives this ordination, to be a guard for the Honor and Good Law of Austria, for rights of all peoples and states, for the holiest treasures of Mankind.

However, to you my peoples, who through your loyalty to your ancestral Noble House are an exemplar to all the peoples of the Earth, I send forth my call: stand to fight by my side in this turmoil with enduring loyalty, devotion, and willingness to sacrifice; your Sons, whom I have called into the ranks of my army, I your warlord, salute with my blade; You may look with pride upon them, in their hands the Eagle of Austria will be borne forth in high honor.

With God for the Fatherland!

-Emperor Franz Josef I, Excerpted from The Imperial Manifesto on the Austro-Sardinian War

Pietas Austriaca

27 Thursday Jul 2017

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By the 19th century the Hapsburgs had acquired the reputation of being the most Catholic of all European reigning houses. The historical tie with the triumphs of the Counter Reformation had left an indelible impression on the European consciousness, and as if to give their own expression to it a special form of Hapsburg piety had evolved, the Pietas Austriaca, in which family traditions clustered about the devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Cross, and the Immaculate Conception. The presence of members of the dynasty at the annual Corpus Christi procession in Vienna testified to the vitality even in the 20th century of such family traditions… The Catholic Church undoubtedly owes its survival in Danubia and other parts of Europe to the Hapsburgs… Because a Hapsburg ruler had such a compelling sense of the Grace of God that had established his family in such a position of authority he tended to be excessively scrupulous in making decisions and in weighing their moral implications… Though if often seemed that they had been motivated by dynastic interest rather than ideals, the very quest for power produced as its legitimate consequence a number of political communities in various parts of Europe, and Europeans nations would find shelter and security under Hapsburg rule. The recent tragic experience of the peoples who once composed the most outstanding of these Hapsburg creations, the Austrian monarchy of Danubia, has encouraged observers to take a more nuanced and positive view of the truly unique Hapsburg achievement.

-W.B. Slottman, The New Catholic Encyclopedia The House of Hapsburg 

Victory Beyond Defeat: Lessons from the 1938 Legitimists

18 Tuesday Jul 2017

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[This New Order] is something quite different from the Old, the Universal, the peoples-binding, the Christian established position in official life, the boundedness also of the Order of Justice and the Eternal Order proceeding from God, the faith in a moral and not naked power Order among States and Peoples, the Justice also towards men of other language and race.

-Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg

On the morning of March 18th, 1938 in the Church of Mary of Sorrows in Grinzing, Dr. Hans Karl von Zeßner-Spitzenberg was arrested by the Gestapo during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He was denied the reception of Holy Communion, taken to the prison on the Elisabethpromenade, and four months later transferred to the concentration camp at Dachau. When asked by the Camp Commander the reason for his imprisonment, he replied, “Because I see in Faith in God and in a Christian Austria under the Leadership of the House of Hapsburg the only Salvation for the Independence and Sovereignty of my Fatherland.” He later died of injuries sustained during his transport to Dachau, giving his life as a witness to the Legitimacy of “the Emperor who never dies.”

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The Virtue of Patriotism contra Thearchic Nationalism

13 Tuesday Jun 2017

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The Church is now bringing together what that tower had sundered. Of one tongue there were made many; marvel not: this was the doing of pride. Of many tongues there is made one; marvel not: this was the doing of charity. For although the sounds of tongues are various, in the heart one God is invoked, one peace preserved.

-St. Augustine, Commentary on the Gospel of St. John

In my wanderings in this valley of tears, I have always tried to uphold the virtue of Patriotism, the love of my country, the land and its peoples. I have written in the past about the perversion of Nationalism which daily undermines the true Common Good of the countries it infects. Yet as with all philosophical errors it returns under different forms in different ages. As it was invoked against the Universal Church in the Sacred Ages, now the Nationalists dare even to invoke God for their defense in this Age of Godlessness. Continue reading →

The Universality of the Catholic Emperor

23 Tuesday May 2017

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Prayers for the Holy Roman Emperor figured in all Christian (Catholic) missals and, until recently, were recited on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The election of an emperor (who originally had to be crowned by the pope) became a feast all over western Christendom. In American Catholic missals these prayers appeared until World War II, when they were formally abolished by Pope Pius XII. Such prayers were also recited in Lutheran services, and in Prussia they were cancelled only upon the orders of Frederick II in the eighteenth century… He [the Emperor] was chosen by the electors, and before his coronation he had the title “King of the Romans.”  (The seven, eight, or nine electors were powerful princes, secular or ecclesiastical.) After Frederick III (1440-1493) it became inconceivable that any other but a Habsburg could be elected… as successor of the Caesars, surrounded by the glory of universality: the Pope was the spiritual, the Holy Roman Emperor the temporal head of the world. 

-Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Intelligent American’s Guide to Europe

Reflections on Nobility, the People, and Vocation

12 Friday May 2017

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One nobility belongs to all the faithful, one dignity, one splendour of race, since all are born of the same Spirit and of the same sacrament of faith, and are sons of God and coheirs of the same inheritance; the rich and the powerful have no other Christ besides Him Who is followed by the poor; they are initiated in no other sacraments, and have no higher expectation of the Celestial Kingdom; all are brethren and members of the Body of Christ, of His flesh and of His bones.

The Catechism of Trent, as quoted by Kenelm Henry Digby in The Broad-Stone of Honour

The true Catholic principle regarding the life of man, is of course Vocation; the fulfillment of the unique purpose and mission in accordance with God’s will. It is intrinsically bound up with the final end of Man, the call to holiness and virtue. It is this principle which must be the foundation of any Catholic Nobility. However, since it is true that not only does all of Mankind share in an inherent nobility (disgraced but not debased by the Fall), but also that all of the Faithful share in a Nobility of Royal Priesthood, wherein does the concept of a separate hierarchical Nobility find its justification?

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The True Felicity of Catholic Emperors

12 Friday May 2017

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For neither do we say that certain Christian emperors were therefore happy because they ruled a long time, or, dying a peaceful death, left their sons to succeed them in the empire, or subdued the enemies of the commonwealth, or were able both to guard against and to suppress the attempt of hostile citizens rising against them. These and other gifts or comforts of this sorrowful life even certain worshippers of false gods have merited to receive, who do not belong to the kingdom of God to which these belong; and this is to be traced to the mercy of God, who would not have those who believe in Him desire such things as the highest good.

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