Beatification Nears for Charles I and Anna Emmerick

VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 20, 2004 (Zenit.org).- John Paul II will soon beatify five people, including Emperor Charles I of Austria and German mystic Anna Katharina Emmerick, whose writings influenced Mel Gibson in the production of "The Passion of the Christ."

The Holy See today published the list of the Servants of God to be beatified Oct. 3, when it announced the Pope's upcoming key liturgical celebrations.

Charles I of Habsburg (1887-1922) was proclaimed emperor of Austria in 1916. In March 1919 he was exiled from that country and formally stripped of his office by the Austrian Parliament that April. Charles died at age 34 in exile on the Portuguese island of Madeira.

Charles married Princess Zita of the Bourbons of Parma. On their wedding day, he told her: "Now we must take one another to heaven," recalled Cardinal José Saraiva Martins last April, during the ceremony to promulgate the decree recognizing a miracle through the Austrian monarch's intercession. The couple had eight children.

Also among the new blessed will be Anna Emmerick (1774-1824), a professed nun of the Order of Canonesses Regular of St. Augustine.

"She bore the stigmata of the Lord's passion and received extraordinary charisms that she used to console numerous visitors. From her bed, she carried out a great and fruitful apostolate," said Cardinal Saraiva Martins, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Sainthood Causes, last July, when reading the decree recognizing a miracle.

Ex-cloistered by the Napoleonic invasion, a stigmatized invalid, the Augustinian religious tried to write down the daily visions of the supernatural which she herself considered ineffable. German writer Clemens Brentano met her, was converted, and stayed at the foot of her bed copying the visionary's accounts from 1818 to 1824.

The result was the book "The Bitter Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ." In addition to the Gospels, Mel Gibson was inspired by the German mystic's writings in the production of his film "The Passion of the Christ."

The others to be beatified are:

-- Pierre Vigne (1670-1740), French priest, founder of the Congregation of the Religious of the Most Holy Sacrament.

-- Joseph Marie Cassant (1878-1903), French priest and Trappist monk. He patiently suffered tuberculosis, which caused his death at age 25.

-- Maria Ludovica (Antonina) de Angelis (1880-1962), religious of the Daughters of Our Lady of Mercy, born in Italy. As part of her apostolate, she moved to La Plata, Argentina, to work in a pediatric hospital. She spent the rest of her life in that city.

To date, John Paul II has proclaimed 1,333 blessed and 482 saints.

These beatifications truly give glory to God, as Charles I and Emmerich suffered greatly for their faith.

We all know of Emmerich through Mel Gibson's beutifully splendid film, which is truly a work of love for Christ and for souls.

But most people have forgotten about Charles. He inhereited the crown of the Autro-Hungarian empire in hte middle of WWI after the death of Emporer Franz Joseph died, after a 60 something year reign. Charles was profoundly Catholic, and showed a gret love for the various ethnic groups of his large and disparate empire.

During WWI, he was constantly trying to find ways to reach a peace - but was out maneuvered by the non-Catholic masonic powers-that-be who desired nothing but bloodshed and the annihilation of Christendom - which was the Catholic civilization which was Europe.

His pleas for peace were ignored outright. During the war he took great care that POWs not be mistreated in any way - showing great mercy toward them. Any officers who violated his orders were to be dealt with severely, as being disobedient to the crown.

At the conclusion of the was, the govenmental/masonic powers in his homeland, and in Europe - and this country - saw to his forcible removal from power. He desired to be king, so that he could continue to keep his empire Christian, and continue his policies of equity to the various ethnic groups therein.

Though his life was short, he showed himself to be a great modern leader, and a thoroughly Catholic king. Had his policies been followed, the mess which is now Eastern Europe would have been pacified. Quite possibly, Communism would not have gotten a foothold. But that was not to be the agenda.

"Do not forget your dying king!"

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