Pope to Beatify 'buffoon' who was Austria's last emperor

Critics suspect political agenda behind campaign


In the ranks of his admirers nostalgic for the old empire, he was a pacifist cast among warmongers, a gentle soul out of his depth among backstabbing diplomats, ministers, and generals.

To his critics, Charles I, the last Habsburg ruler, was a dissembling buffoon who presided over the inglorious defeat and dissolution of his empire.

And to the Catholic church, the kaiser was a devout miracle-worker who has just been launched on his way to sainthood.

Charles I of Austria and Charles IV of Hungary, the last emperor who ascended to the Habsburg throne in the middle of the first world war in 1916 and died in exile on Madeira six years later at the age of 35, is to be beatified by the Vatican this year.

Historians argue the emperor's claims to Christian grace are undermined by the perceptions that he was a consummate liar, that he presided over the use of poison gas by his troops and that his chaotic leadership contributed to a fiasco when hundreds of thousands of his soldiers were taken prisoner in the war's last days.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,12272,1125947,00.html

He tried to reclaim the throne on a number of occasions, only to be rebuffed and threatened with arrest by Miklos Horthy. On one of his trips back to Hungary, he spent an evening in Tata, and my grandparents accidently met him (my father was a child at the time). They were not impressed, and neither were the members of the old Hungarian military.

I've always been a fan of the preposterous Austro-Hungarian Empire, but this is quite astounding.

If Bush* was Emperor of Texas and King of Mexico, plus overlord of a bunch of miscellaneous Central American countries, it have a passing resemblance. I don't know much about Charles I, except he was incompetent and placed in an impossible position.

Plus this dynasty along with the ungovernable Serbs, got us into the Great War, leading to Hitler and WW2, global Communism, and a lot of other great stuff. If the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, this guy is in the seventh circle of Hades, but that's obviously not my call.

She seems to be a more likely subject.

If Josemaria "Opus Dei" Escriva can be beatified, I'm sure Elizabeth Bathory's beatification can't be far behind.

Then we can start on the Tepes family; the Borgias; and Joseph Goebbels -- good Roman Catholics all.

I hope that modern Roman Catholics will educate themselves about these reprobates and their atrocities, and prevail upon the Holy Father to get his Holy Head out of his Holy Sepulchre.

--bkl

who was assassinated by an anarchist.

Their view is rather subjective.

I thought this was about Arnie!

I guess if the Russian Orthodox Church can canonize Nicholas the Bloody turnabout is fair play.