Catholic World News News Feature

Beatification for Emperor Karl, Anne Emmerich May 28, 2004

Emperor Karl I of Austria and Anne Catherine Emmerich will be beatified in October, Vatican Radio has disclosed. The broadcast follows earlier announcements from bishops in Germany and Austria.

Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774- 1824), a German mystic and stigmatist, has enjoyed a renewed popular appeal during the past year because her visions served as the basis for Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ. A nun who was confined to her bed by illness for years, she recorded at length her visions of the Passion. She also received many visitors at her bedside during the last years of her life, providing spiritual counsel and developing a wide reputation for sanctity. On July 7, Pope John Paul II approved the decree authorizing her beatification. The ceremony will on October 3-- which is already a day of celebration in Germany because it is the 14th anniversary of country's reunification.

Emperor Karl I of Austria (also sometimes known as Charles) succeeded Emperor Franz Joseph to the throne in 1916, after the assassination of his uncle, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand-- who would have been Franz Joseph's heir-- pitched Europe into World War I in 1914. As the last emperor of the Habsburg dynasty in Austria-Hungary, he worked tirelessly but unsuccessfully to bring the war to a rapid end. In 1911 he married Princess Zita of Bourbon, and the couple had 8 children. With the fall of the Austrian monarchy, he died in exile, on the Portuguese island of Madeira in 1922. In December 2003, the Vatican recognized the authenticity of a miracle accomplished through his intercession: the healing of a Brazilian nun whose paralysis doctors had pronounced incurable. His pending beatification has roused some controversy in Europe, where some partisans still his secret efforts to end World War I, and some opponents of the old European order resent any honor bestowed on a former monarch.

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