Guest
Eduard Habsburg is Hungary’s ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta. His family reigned in Austria, Hungary, Germany, Spain (and quite a few other places). Also known as Archduke Eduard of Austria, he is a diplomat and social media personality. Eduard and his wife, Baroness Maria Theresia von Gudenus, have six children. Eduard is the author of several books, including the children’s book Dubbie: The Double-Headed Eagle, volumes on Thomas Aquinas, James Bond and Harry Potter, novels and screenplays. His most recent book, published by Sophia Institute Press, is The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times.
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Transcript
Eric Sammons:
The House of Habsburg is one of the most famous and powerful families in history. What was it like growing up as a Habsburg and what can the rest of us learn from their family history? That’s what we’re going to talk about today on Crisis Point. Hello, I’m Eric Sammons, your host and the Chief of Crisis Magazine. Before we get started, I just want to encourage people to smash that like button to subscribe to the channel. You don’t have to notify button though because you have a life outside of the internet. Also, you can share this with others. You can follow us on social media at Crisis Mag. Well, we have a great guest. I’m just going to jump right into it. We have a great guest today. Very excited about this one, have been for a while. Archduke Eduard Habsburg is Hungary’s Ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Alt Order of Malta.
His family reigned in Austria, Hungary, Germany, Spain, and quite a few other places. He’s also known as Archduke Eduard of Austria, and he’s a diplomat and social media personality. He and his wife have six children, which that’s the most important part of this entire bio I’m sure he thinks. He’s the author of several books. One I just got for my daughter recently, Dubbie, the Double-Headed Eagle. He’s also written volumes on Thomas Aquinas, James Bond, and Harry Potter novels and screenplays. His most recent book, though, published by Sophia Institute Press, is The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times. Welcome to the program.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Thank you for having me on the program and many greetings from Rome.
Eric Sammons:
Yes, so as the Ambassador of Hungary to the Holy See, my goal here is to create an international diplomat incident.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Oh dear.
Eric Sammons:
Try to find some way… I’m just kidding. We’ll avoid any of those type of topics that you’re not allowed to necessarily discuss on podcasts.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
No, Eric, it’s very easy if you speak about certain topics, I’ll become diplomatic, which means boring. And you don’t want to be boring.
Eric Sammons:
That’s true. That’s true. Yes. All of a sudden you’ll give these generic responses and I’ll have to be like-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
Okay, let’s move on to something a little more interesting like we were talking about before we got on about Star Trek Picard and things like that, but-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
So anyway, so let’s go right into it. So obviously you’re a member of the Habsburg family and I know you’ve been asked this before and you talk about a little bit in the book, but what was it like growing up as a Habsburg?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
It’s a very strange experience. For me it’s the only experience I know because that’s my life. But I can tell that for people outside it must be pretty weird. I would say they offer you a ready made identity and this is a mixture of what your family expects you to stand for and to be and what other people expect you to stand for and to be. If you’re Eduard, you’re Eduard. But if you’re Edward Habsburg, you’re part of a thousand year old family that stood for certain things and when you look at the family and you see it is rather a nice family that stands for positive things for more for marriage and friendship and diplomacy and bringing people together than slaughter, massacre, backstabbing, poisoning, it makes it a bit easier to accept this mantle as you get handed. But if you ask me how it is to grow up, it’s a mixture.
I usually say that the first time you really, really run into trouble with your name is in school because in school the Habsburgs will pop up in history quite regularly because we have been interacting with history from the year 1273 to the 20th century. Nearly in every class, at some point somebody will mention the Habsburgs and then the teacher will say, well, this is something that surely Mr. Habsburg can tell us. And then everybody turns around to you and you of course don’t because you, as I write in my book, you haven’t been born with other memories like the Bene Gesserit in the Dune novels. You can’t confer with your ancestor in the evening and so you have to learn it yourself. Now you learn being a Habsburg by watching your elders. You watch your parents of course you learn what they speak about. You watch the walls in your house. Usually there is one or two paintings of ancestors somewhere in your house, usually bought at an auction, not handed down through generations. Then you have uncles who are famous.
I was happy enough as a 10 year old, 12 year old to get to know Empress Zita when she was already an old lady and through meeting someone like her, I could reach back at least a hundred years because she of course was raised on what was the second half of the 19th century. So there’s personal encounters, there is listening to your elders, there is reading books. At a certain point you begin to read books about your family and then there is also watching what people expect of you. You go to events, you go to, there is a centenary of some emperor and then you all stand there, several members of your family and you see the head of your family giving a speech.
You see an anthem being played, the old Austrian imperial anthem Kaiserhymne, you see people crying. You don’t understand this because you live firmly in the 20th and 21st century and you suddenly see people cry when your family is mentioned. You see Schudson, these people in the traditional uniforms with their historic big rifles giving you salute shoots and you try to make sense of all that. It’s really quite interesting. But it’s 80% cool to be a Habsburg, I have to admit it. I don’t know whether I would want to be other families, but Habsburg is really nice.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I can imagine you are the first person I’ve interviewed who has a relative in the background here because I’ve Blessed Karl bust here right behind me and had we a discussion on here about Blessed Karl at the podcast a while back. Just so people can kind of understand where you sit in the family. Of course most people, well most people watch this know, Blessed Karl of course was the last emperor and he had a son Otto and who died not that long ago, maybe 10, 15 years ago, something like that.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes. Yes.
Eric Sammons:
And of course he had a son. I think Karl I believe is Otto’s son’s name.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes. He’s the head of our family now.
Eric Sammons:
Right. He’s the head of the family now. But now where are you? I know I’ve seen you joke on Twitter that you’d had to kill about 50 to 100 people in order to be head in first in line. How are you related then exactly to Blessed Karl’s family and in the line?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Eric, if you want to do this right, you need a piece of paper and 20 minutes, but we don’t have that, so I’m going to give you the Reader’s Digest version. There are four lines of the Habsburg family, four branches if you want to. They all split up in about 1800 in the time of the grandchildren of Empress Maria Teresa. Now Mary Teresa was the last Habsburg, if you want, so female, there were no male Habsburg left. And then she married France from Lothringen and after her, the family was called Habsburg-Lothringen. She had 16 children out of whom only two sons survived. One of them, Joseph II, the other one, his brother Leopold who took over from him. But thank God Leopold had 16 children too and 10 sons. And from these 10 sons, the four lines that are the Habsburgs today come down.
I would say the Vienna line, which is Franz the II afterwards, Emperor Franz Joseph, after that, Blessed Karl and Otto. Then you would have to Tuscany line, which is the descendant of Franz II’s, brother Ferdinand who remained in Florence in Tuscany as Grand Duke of Tuscany. And then when Italy united, all these Italian Habsburgs fled to Austria. That was a Tuscany line. Then you had the Taschen line. Those are the descendants of Archduke Charles who beat Napoleon in the Battle of Aspern. They lived in Poland for a long time. They have nearly died out, they’re just very few of them left. And the youngest branch, and that’s where I fit into the picture is the Hungarian branch of the Habsburgs. My ancestor, great, great, great-grandfather Archduke Joseph went to Hungary as Palatine of the Emperor. He was sort of the emperor’s second man in Hungary doing the connection between Hungary and the Emperor.
And he went native, so to speak. He fell in love with Hungary and the Hungarians and his family stayed in Hungary ever since until up to the second World War and then my family fled. We have quite a numerous branch, lots of children, that’s Hungarian branch. Those are the four branches. So if you ask me how I’m related to it’s quite easy. If you go back three generations, then Karl’s and my great, great-grandfathers are brothers, but that’s like, that’s far away. And there is of course several cross relationships over the last 200 years. That’s it. But as I like to joke is if people say that Eduard is going to be our emperor, I always say I have to kill about 80 male Habsburgs. It would be quite a massacre. But you know, always think about it. When there’s a family meeting, you always do that.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I can’t really picture that ever happening. Now a lot of people, I think the common, at least in America, probably even in the Western idea of the Habsburg is it’s a historic thing. It’s something in the past we can learn about in history. But kind of the purpose of your book, it seems to me one of them at least is to say the Habsburg family still has something to say to the world today. And what would it be that you would say the Habsburg family today can say to the world? What’s the message it’s trying to tell the world?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Eric, before I answered this question while you were talking, I was just thinking that’s exactly the message of my other book, Dubbie, the Double-Headed Eagle. Because in that book there is a nefarious organization that tries to keep all the values of the Habsburgs in the past. It’s really the same message. Very interesting for pointing that out to me.
Eric Sammons:
My daughter who I got the book for, the Dubbie book, a couple months ago when I mentioned last night dinner, I was like, oh yeah, I’m going to be interviewing you tomorrow morning. She’s like, oh, he’s the one who wrote the book you got me right? I said, “Yeah.” I said, “Yeah, but I’m not going to interview him about that book. I’m actually interviewing about a different book.” But now I’ll tell her, “Hey, we’re actually talking about Dubbie as well.”
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
The same topic. It’s the same topic really. What I usually say as a traditional person is if things were good for the last several hundred years, they don’t automatically become bad by the invention of the internet or the idea that man has totally changed about 50 years ago and is now on a superior level of existence. I think the values that the Habsburg’s stood for are something to be presented to our time, especially to our time. The title of the book, because I thought, I’m going to write a history of the Habsburgs, that’s boring. I’m not going to write another history of the Hapsburg because that exists. I said, “Okay, I’m going to try to figure out what are the seven central values, principles of my family.” And when I tried to list them up, it was quite an interesting process. Asking uncles, going through books, reading articles, trying to find people who did that before me. And seven is a nice number I could have had more or less, but seven is good.
And I realized, wait a minute, some of these things seem really relevant to our times and I sometimes have the feeling, and I think many of your listeners will have the same feeling that we are a bit down the rabbit hole in Wonderland behind the mirrors that as the cow in Gary Larson says, “Perhaps it’s the rest of the herd that has gone insane.” We live in a crazy time. Everybody seems to be without roots, floating around alone, helpless, no values are safe anymore. Everything is gone, everything is up in the air, everything is for grabs. And I want to encourage people who stand for values and I want to give them a few things to hold on. I think that’s mostly it.
And what I think is at these seven points that I talk about, some of them very obvious when you think about Habsburgs, some a bit less, are we can ask from ourselves for our society and also for our political life. And for me, it was quite surprising. The other big surprise was how surprisingly similar the values of the Habsburgs and many values of the American nation are of the United States. I began writing the book for American readers, but I realized I don’t even have to force it. There is quite a bit that Americans will understand, which is crazy because the United States are the republic, the democracy and the Habsburgs must be seen as a dusty old tyrants that we have to fight against. But not at all. Not at all.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, and it’s interesting because it seems like in this country there is this very rapidly growing devotion to Blessed Karl, which is, on its face, it’s very odd. Let’s be honest because like you said, we’re the new republic, we’re the democracy, all that. Blessed Karl was our enemy in the war he was involved in. And so there should be really, we should be opposites, but as you’re seeing really the true values are not. Now you mentioned you have your seven rules for turbulent times with seven kind of themes. Seven’s a very good number. Another great number is three and I felt like there are three major categories we’re talking about when it comes to the Habsburgs for what they teach us, nets, faith, family, and politics. Those three areas are very important to the Habsburgs and I think they are models for us, so I want to kind of go through those as well. For faith now, the Habsburgs obviously Catholic family in at least generally speaking. And so talk a little bit about the importance of the Catholic faith in the Habsburg family, both historically, but also today.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
We’ve gotten used to the idea that political leaders should be neutral, ideally don’t have any religion. In the States it’s a bit less, but in Europe people are totally neutral. You will never say they’re religious convictions, except of course if you go to Central Europe or Hungary or something like that. But in the western part of Europe, it’s really a cemetery. And we have forgotten that for our ancestors, having a faith and a public faith was the most normal thing in the world. The Habsburgs were Catholic and they really showed it because they had to show it because they were an example to their peoples. And it began in 1273 before 1273, before the first Hapsburg who became ruler of the Holy Roman Empire in 1273, Rudolph became emperor.
There was a famous story when he was riding in the forest and hunting somewhere in Switzerland, and he saw a priest trying to cross a river with a Viaticum with bringing the sacrament to a dying man. And the river was swollen and he couldn’t cross. It was too high. So Rudolph got down from his horse, gave the horse to the priest and says, “Use it and to bring the Viaticum to dying man.” And when the priest came back afterwards and brought the horse back to Rudolph, Rudolph said the famous phrase, “This be far from me, that I would mount a horse again that my Lord has ridden upon.” And he gave it to the priest as a gift.
Now this is a gesture, it’s a story, but I think it is very, very appropriate. And the people in the area said this is going to be rewarded, this gesture. And it was because he became an emperor and he founded an incredible dynasty that remained for the next 800 years shaping Europe by faith. The Habsburgs were always Catholic. There were a few who were pretty weak source when it came to Catholic faith. There were a few who gave shocking examples of not living their faith fully. And some made quite a mess of it, but nearly all of them were very Catholic. And that played into everything you mentioned after faith, family, the Habsburg marriages went well when they went well and most of them went well because of faith. Faith was the establishing principle of Habsburg marriage and politics was always imbued by the Catholic faith of the Habsburgs.
There’s a very nice passage in my book where I quote Henry Kissinger’s diplomacy and he speaks about the difference between Cardinal Richelieu, a Catholic cardinal in Paris and Ferdinand the II, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. And Kissinger writes how Richelieu is absolutely astonished that Ferdinand is not ready to give some concessions to the Protestant princess in his empire because by that he could have had peace like that. But as Ferdinand himself said, “If I wouldn’t love them and care for them, I would just let them in their error. But because I love them and I want them to be saved, I can’t do that.” He remains stubborn and I think it is because of him that Austria is still Catholic today, while Richelieu was ready to basically make an agreement with the devil or with the Muslims if it helped the state reason of France. So faith also always informed and imbued every action that the Habsburgs did as emperors, as family, fathers, as parents of their peoples.
Eric Sammons:
Now this question might bring out diplomat’s answer, and that’s okay, but I want to ask a little bit because in America the separation of churches and state is seen as a completely, that’s our number one rule almost to a lot of especially secular people in this country. And of course that was not the case with the Habsburgs, as you mentioned, it was always combined. And today in Hungary, I know it’s not like it’s a Catholic state or anything like that, but at the same time, from what we see over here, it does seem like your rulers seem to be much more open about their faith. We had your president came to speak in America, she spoke at Franciscan University of Steubenville, and my daughter and my son went to that and said it was very good. But they speak more openly it seems like about their faith and about, I don’t want to say the integration because that all also brings up a bunch of ideas, but just the relationship at least. And I guess what I’m trying to ask is how can that relationship-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Don’t be shy, Eric. Don’t be shy.
Eric Sammons:
How can the relationship between church and state in the modern world work out in a better way? And perhaps with Hungary as an example of how that is happening today?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Hungary is pretty unashamed about the fact that it’s a Christian state and a Christian country with a thousand year Christian history. And our constitution begins with the word God. God bless the Hungarian. It’s the beginning of our anthem. And of course we have separation of state and church, but our constitution also states that state and church work together for the good of society. State and church and religious communities work together for the good of society.
We have a close and good relation between state and church in Hungary. It is a country where you will see church in the public space, you will see bishops at events, you will see politicians speaking about their faith, making the sign of the cross, speaking, helping persecuted Christians all over the world. And that’s not just a political gimmick, it’s a conviction. I can tell that when I go home to Budapest as an ambassador, everybody wants to know what’s going on in Rome. What did the Pope say? What are the latest events? Church topics are very, very, very, very interesting for all of the levels of government because all these people, very many of them have been raised in Catholic schools. Although a strong part of the Hungarian government is Calvinist, Református.
And while 60% of our population is Catholic and only 15% Calvinist. A strong, part of the government is Calvinist because the Calvinist are simply more active and more politically pushing people. People mostly are surprised to learn that Orban is not Catholic. They believe he’s Catholic.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I know a lot of people do think that. I knew he wasn’t, but-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
Now wait, I’m sorry, but what is your president’s name? What is her name?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Katalin Novak.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Now is she Catholic or she cal-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
No, she’s also Calvinist.
Eric Sammons:
Okay.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
But Orban is married to a Catholic and Orban has a great respect. For instance, when he came to visit the dead body of Benedict the 16th or when he came to visit the Pope and had Holy Mass in the normal 10 o’clock mass in St. Peter’s with the normal Italians there, he knelt down during consecration. He didn’t go to communion of course, because he wasn’t Catholic. But he has this incredible respect.
And what I’m trying to say is Western European countries shouldn’t be so terrorized of showing a bit more of their faith in public space. And I think perhaps if a few politicians would live their faith a bit more visibly, these things would be less stressful for many others. And in my book, I posit that if I know somebody’s faith, I know how I can hold this person accountable. And if somebody believes in God, then I can suspect that he believes that he will have to render account to God one day about what he has done. And that in my book, diminishes the possibility of corruption, of crime, of all these things. I very strongly encourage people to vote for politicians that have a faith and speak about it and stand for values. You should vote somebody for his faith and not even though he has a faith.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. It sounds like basically, it’s not that there is a formal relationship between church and state in the sense of being one or united in that way.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
No, no. Not at all. Not at all.
Eric Sammons:
It’s more and more a sense of just a relationship of, okay, let’s work together for the good of the country and not shut the church out of the state.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes. Eric, it’s important. This is a very important point because people often say for instance at the Hungarian Bishop’s Conference that they are totally united with the state and everything. I can tell from years in getting to know these people, especially Cardinal Erdo, they are strongly looking to it that they are independent, they keep their independence, they agree on many points, but they’re clearly independent, but they work together very well. We’ve seen this when we organized the Eucharistic Congress two years ago, and now in the preparation of the papal visit, there is a good relaxed togetherness between state and church while still knowing that there are two separate things.
And I can tell as an ambassador, my job is of course to be the ambassador of the Hungarian people and of the Hungarian current government, of course to the Holy See. But I always have to have one foot in the Catholic Church in Hungary, one ear open to the voices of the Catholic leadership in Hungary. And also I ask the help of Catholic players in Hungary like Cardinal Erdo, if I try to lobby for something around the Vatican, I couldn’t do this as a purely secular person. This is where you see that a good relationship with respect for the differences and with respect for the distance, but a good relationship can be incredibly helpful.
Eric Sammons:
And so just real quick side note, what is the purpose of the… Pope Francis is visiting, for those who don’t know, is visiting Hungary in about a week. What is the purpose of his visit this time to Hungary?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Well, the first time, Pope Francis would probably tell you, he didn’t go to Hungary. He just went to Budapest and he just went for seven hours to go to the Eucharistic Congress in Budapest. He never used the word Hungary when he came the first time in his announcements. And as some Hungarians were offended and said he doesn’t want to say Hungary, but it was because he distinguishes between visits in a town and visit in a country. And at this time, he’s going to visit Hungary, which means he’s going to come for three days. He arrives on Friday morning the 28th, and he leaves on Sunday evening the 30th, and he’s going to have a huge collection of meetings, engagements, talks, masses. And I think he was always curious about Hungary. He told me in our first encounter for my credentials that his experience with Hungarians was positive in Buenos Aires.
And we were lucky enough that the Pope had made his real in-depth experience with Hungarians, with a group of nuns from Hungary. There is a Mary Ward monastery near Buenos Aires, and a group of Hungarian nuns had fled to Argentina in 1956. And it was this group that the Pope regularly met when he went as an archbishop to visit at monastery to say Mass, to hear confessions, to eat with the nuns. He always talked to them and he told me, “I’ve learned everything I need to know about Hungary from these nuns.” And I said, “So what did you learn?” And he said, “The Hungarians are upright, good and courageous people.” I said, “Wow, that’s not bad.”
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, exactly. It sounds though that was some of Hungarian’s best ambassadors, those nuns.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Absolutely. And they could, of course, they couldn’t have any idea that he would be Pope one day.
Eric Sammons:
Right. Right.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
But I think he likes people who are outspoken, who stand for their position, who are not afraid or overly intimidated by him. I had the impression that the meetings with Orban and also with Katalin Novak, our president, went extremely well. I came into the room three minutes after the end of the talk I saw their faces. So I think those were great meetings. But it’s good that we speak about Hungary because the foreword of the book has been written by Viktor Orban. And Hungary plays quite a role in this book because the Habsburgs were very strongly, is enmeshed the word that I’m looking for?
Eric Sammons:
Yeah.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Hungary and the Habsburgs were a long complicated, not always love story, but a story of needing each other very strongly and finally getting to a balance that of course was cut apart then with the end of the first World War. But if you look now, Hungary has two Habsburg ambassadors right now, one to the Holy See, one to Paris. There is a joke in Hungary currently, which says, Austria lives off the Habsburgs and Hungary lives with the Habsburgs.
Eric Sammons:
Because I’m not sure if everybody realizes this, probably if you’ve watching this, you’ve heard me talk about it. But Blessed Karl was the Emperor of Austria, but he was the King of Hungary. And it was a-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
It’s a separate, it’s not, because over here we always talk about the Austrian Hungarian Empire. That’s a common phrase, but really technically that’s not true. That’s not an-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
Accurate title because he was the Emperor of Austria, but the King of Hungary. And so he’s the last King of Hungary. And so just talking about that a little bit, I want to talk about family here in a minute because I know how important that is for the Habsburg legacy, so to speak. But talking about politics, so I’m just going to go there. A number of our listeners, they’re very much supportive of monarchy, restored monarchy. And so in the Habsburg, like family chats or anything like that, is there ever a discussion of maybe one day there’s going to be a restoration, not that you are going to be murdering anybody, but that there’s going to be a restoration or even the idea that a monarchy is a… And this goes actually back to historically the Habsburg legacy in history. Is there an idea, a thought that perhaps the a monarchy is a good or even ideal political form, or is it basically just a recognition of that’s not really realistic in today’s world and we’re just going to go with what we have?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
I think the American expression is, is this a trick question?
Eric Sammons:
Yes.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
You ask a Habsburg about monarchy.
Eric Sammons:
That’s right. I have to.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
This is a complex topic, but also very easy one. Right now in none of the ex-monarchies countries, there is a monarchy. So you can always dream about possibilities. But right now, it doesn’t seem to be the time or the place for a monarchy, neither in Austria Hungary or in the surrounding countries. However, monarchies still exist. There are monarchies all over Europe. Some of the best countries in Europe are monarchies. And as you can tell by reading my book, I make a very strong case for the positive sides of a monarchy. However, a monarchy has to grow organically.
I’m thinking a lot about, people ask me that all the time in the States, could one state of America become a monarchy? Could a monarchy come back like this? We are in the new situation now. After monarchy has been abolished in countries, how would it come back? It could only come back if the people really wanted that. I don’t think you can plop it onto people from above, doesn’t work. And I don’t think it will sort of pop up naturally. We live in a world that is far too far away from that. There would have to be a growing desire by the population for something like that. I think right now, as I say, I don’t see this.
And I also have this idea that if there would have to be a monarchy and any Habsburg would have to play a role in that, it couldn’t be one of these anemic parliamentary monarchies like we have them in other countries. I couldn’t imagine a Habsburg being a monarch in a place where you would have to sign every law that your parliaments bring you. Like in Belgium, for instance, where they brought the king a child euthanasia law, the worst euthanasia law in Europe, and he had to sign it because he has to sign everything. Or in the Netherlands where the king as his throne speech has to basically read what the prime minister gives him and has written. This is not monarchy, in my opinion.
Okay, I’m saying unfriendly things. They’re doing incredible, I think that they are killing themselves to serve their country, but the situation that they are in is basically they are presidents, but not like the American presidents. More like a decorative element with a crown. And they’re on stamps, but they don’t have any real power in the countries. And what’s the point in having a monarchy if the monarch can’t say no to a law and absolutely no. And what you have a monarch, because a monarch grows up to serve. He watches his parents’ rule, he watches his parents deal with the problems of the country. He gets to know every player in the country, the churches, every political party, the fault lines. He gets to know the entire history of the country and his entire life he or she’s being prepared to serve, to serve. If then they come into a position of power. And this sounds all very ideal, but I think it’s the case for many of the current rulers in Europe. You will think twice before you make a quick decision because you can’t leave this chair.
If you’re once a monarch, you will remain so and you will have to live for decades with the consequences of your actions. And your children will have to live with those consequences. You cannot just say, I’m a politician for 10 years and then I’ll find a big fat job somewhere in big tech or somewhere with my good connections and then I’ll have a wonderful life. And I don’t care what’s happening to the state because it’s none of my business anymore. That’s not a luxury that monarchs had. And therefore they will take into account things that perhaps a politician nowadays would never have to take into account. There are some things that a monarchy can do really well, but as I said, it doesn’t seem to be the moment right now, but as you asked before, that’s what we have in our blood and in our DNA. So if monarchy would come along, I hope we would know what to do.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I would think it’s kind of like what you said, if there was some movement to restore monarchy somewhere in one of these countries that lost it, first of all, in America, the problem is we’ve just never had it. I know technically we were under United Kingdom a long time ago, but really as Americans, we just have no real connection to monarchy.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Your base, your basis is fighting tyrants-
Eric Sammons:
Right.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
This is your founding myth.
Eric Sammons:
That’s right. Exactly. Exactly right. We’re literally born on anti monarchy stance. And so it would take a really radical difference there. Whereas in Europe, there still is at least some connections. And I think the Habsburg family being one of them, just the idea, but I agree with you that we’re talking about has to be… Partly though, I think the destruction of the West, the internal destruction of just seeing how things are going desperate times call for desperate measures. And so it wouldn’t surprise me because I know in America that’s exactly why there’s been a rise in this idea of maybe monarchy is simply because here in America, for example, it’s not just a bunch of uber Catholics who are saying maybe something like a monarchy because you’ll find secular libertarians who will say the same thing for very different reasons. Because the analogy that I use that you just kind of suggested was the difference between an owner of a house and a renter and a monarch-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Exactly.
Eric Sammons:
Is the owner of the house.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Exactly.
Eric Sammons:
And in the president, the Democrat president, let’s say, he is the renter. He doesn’t-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
Have to hand it on to anybody. He doesn’t have to take. And we all know that you treat your house better when you own it than when you rent it.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
Even the most diligent person does that. And so I think that’s why there has been, I think it’s still very tiny. I’m not acting like there’s some big movement or something like that-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
No.
Eric Sammons:
But I do think it is something that people, when they’re looking for alternatives, when they see our current system not working, that’s what they have. And at least with your family, there is that history of knowledge of what it means to be a monarch, if not in practice, because obviously none of you guys have practiced it. But in just the kind of family history that’s been handed on to you, like you having experience of meeting servant of God Zita and-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
That type of handing on.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Eric, can I ask you a question?
Eric Sammons:
Sure.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
We both have spoken about Blessed Karl to audiences in the United States. I’ve spoken to 700 people near Dallas in a conference hall, and I saw young families, I saw young people, I saw enthusiasm for this man. I’ve never ever in my life seen something like this in Europe. Why is there such an incredible love for Blessed Karl in the United States? Please.
Eric Sammons:
It is, I’m glad, okay, way to turn around. You are a good diplomat here. You turn around the question on me. But no, it’s a great question because it’s an interesting thing because I did not even know who Blessed Karl was maybe five years ago. And I think most Catholics would say in America would say the same thing. There’s the hardcore people who have known him for a long time, but most of us have come to him very, very recently. And I think there’s a number of things that really speak to his devotion growing here in America.
For me, one of them, and I think I know this is true for other people, is him as his role as the peace emperor that we see that, okay, I can say it, you can’t necessarily say it, but I can say it. But I’m just very upset with America’s foreign policy that we seem to want to import conflict and war and just not peace everywhere around the world. And Blessed Karl lived in a very similar time to ours in the sense of we have these local conflicts that threatened to become massive destructive forces worldwide.
And there was one man who was sane during the World War I as far as the world leaders go, it feels like only one of them was sane. I mean, maybe you could argue a little bit on Nicholas II of Russia, he wasn’t completely insane himself. But really it was Blessed Karl who was the sane one and nobody listened to him. And the fact that he was rejected and ridiculed almost, well it does, it almost increases our view of him because we’re often we meaning those who are trying to speak out against maybe American imperial designs, but also for the faith, we’re often rejected and ridiculed by the powers that be.
And so was Blessed Karl. And so we looked to him as, okay, this is a guy who was, I literally found on the air when I was researching him, he’s jokingly called the Patron Saint of Failures.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
And I think that’s something to embrace because-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
Our Lord Jesus Christ was worldly wise a failure, he was killed-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Absolutely.
Eric Sammons:
He was up on the cross. And yet we all know the end of the story. And the same thing with Blessed Karl. And so I also think his deep devotion really has struck a chord, particularly with more traditionally minded Catholics. I found that he has a higher level of people knowing about him and having devotion among traditional Catholics. And I think it’s because of his own very traditional, obviously at the time it was different because that’s what it was back then. But just I think his love of the mass and of family life and things like that.
I do think it’s ultimately though I do think it’s the Holy Spirit because it is still a little bit inexplicable why devotion of him has grown so much in this country. It really shouldn’t happen by human standards, but yet that’s exactly what’s happening.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
It’s a beautiful thing. I like I said this, I got right here. I got my holy card that sits right here to him. It really is something. And so let me segue then into the other thing I wanted to bring up about the Habsburg and that is family life because I think that’s a big part of the devotion of Blessed Karl and how central is family life to the Habsburg way, so to speak. You speak there about having lots of kids in the book, in lots of kids, marriage, and things like that. How is family central to the Habsburg way?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
It’s totally central. It’s totally central. We have this joke in our family that Hapsburg is a plural world. There is not one Hapsburg. There’s always several. And thousands of Habsburgs have lived over the centuries. Most of the Habsburgs have lots of children. Of course, it wasn’t a time before there could regulate births, but there were families who had two or three children at that time too. You had lots of children and of course you married quite a lot of them away of the daughters, but that was not cynical. That was an act very often of peace and of bringing people together. Why was marriage a very central topic for the Habsburgs and marriage politics? Because when Rudolph the I in 1273 became the first king of the Holy Roman Empire, he got handed over an empire that was an incredibly complicated juggling game of different nations, different languages, different institutions, laws, dukedoms, kingdoms, and he had to keep peace between them and justice.
The way to do this was not by violent force and with armies, the way to do this was by marriage and by alliances. So the Habsburgs were sort of forced into such a situation from the beginning and then also later in the Austria Hungarian Empire, it was always several countries in with different languages. You didn’t have the luxury of one nation speaking one language, which could be tempting to enlarge the power of that nation by attacking neighbors. The Habsburgs try to keep together. And family is the image of that, is the image of that. And in a family, you try to respect the single member of the family, the youngest as much as the eldest, the males, as much as the girls. You try to do the same with the parts of your empire. This is the Habsburg way. And I want to write, that’s my secret plan for my second book for the next one. It’s going to be the Habsburg family book.
And I’m going to, I’m not giving it, oh, I’m giving it away. I want to write a book about all the phases of family from getting married via expecting, baby, birth, et cetera, all the way to, and then give examples from the Habsburg family. A bit what I tease here. But there is very good so much. There is so much more and it can be encouraging for families. What I’m saying is I encourage as many people as possible to have lots of children. I can tell this after having had six children, having a very generous and very courageous wife, it changes everything. Having a numerous family changes everything. First of all, you can’t buy that much. You are not so impressed by advertising. You can’t have such a luxurious lifestyle. You have to make choices. But the beauty of the interaction of your children among themselves, especially around the dinner table, which is the place where I always watch astonished at what’s going on here and what we’ve done.
And also family is a place where the state can’t put their wires into your brain when you have family, this is a safe space. This is like, how do you call it when you make a circle of wagons to where the attackers can’t come in?
Eric Sammons:
Right, right.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
It’s a safe space where you can share your values. Nobody can talk into it. It’s the most revolutionary and countercultural thing you can do to have a big family. And it’s wonderful. It’s absolutely wonderful. It’s an experience of faith. It heightens the love between the spouses and it’s the greatest gift, I’m just watching now. One of our daughters lies in bed with flu. She’s in another town. I can see her talking to siblings here and siblings in the states via their phones and they make the evening prayers together with her just to encourage. This is something incredible. I know that if we have an accident and we have an airplane accident and die, my wife and me, they will have each other. They have the strongest, strongest net that then can catch you is a family. And that’s the same…
I don’t want to paint a rose tinted picture of Habsburg history. There were difficult times too in the Habsburg family. There were conflicts, there were rivalries, it existed, but the large majority was incredibly harmonic and positive. So that’s why I think family is the thing. And it is, I think family and faith will save the world.
Eric Sammons:
Absolutely. And I share your experience of the beauty of a big family. I have seven kids and for example, my second oldest daughter’s getting married very soon and my youngest daughter is her flower girl. And it’s just beautiful, that relationship then between them that they share this and just seeing my younger kids, how they look up to their older siblings and how the older siblings love to be with and take care of their younger siblings-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Exactly. Exactly.
Eric Sammons:
It can’t be replaced. And I think one of the things I’m seeing here with in talking to you that I didn’t really see when I was writing my notes. When I talked about faith, family, and politics is the Habsburg, I feel like their genius is that they’ve combined those three, they’ve integrated those three together into one life. And I think for the great, great, obviously we were talking about faith and politics being related to each other, but also that’s the one thing I did not realize about the Habsburgs until I started reading about them in the past couple years was how their expansion of the empire was not typically through military conquest, it was through marriages. It was done in this peaceful ways.
And so like you said, it wasn’t a matter of, okay, our people who speak this language are going to now conquer your people and take over and make you speak our language and become part of our people. Instead, it was like, okay, your people will now be intertwined sacramentally-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
To marriage with my people-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes. Exactly.
Eric Sammons:
And we will be one people. But you’re still going to be your people.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
And we’re still going to be our people, but yeah, we’re going to be one people. And that’s something I think in America particularly because of all the difficulties we have with our melting pot, which sometimes is very forced and very difficult. This is the Austrian Empire under Blessed Karl and of course Franz Joseph and everything was very much a melting pot in a very different way though-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
Because it was united in the faith but also unite in family and united in the empire as well. I think that’s another great example for it.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
I think one word that is in my book is very important here in that subsidiarity. I really can’t stress enough how important this element was. Of course not under that name 500 years ago. But if you listen to what Charles V tells his son, Phillip II in a letter and he tells him, “If you rule over different countries, you better respect the different languages, the different laws, the different rights and their, they’re different customs or you’ll be in huge trouble.” And I can see some of this in the United States, in theory still at least your country is built from bottom up. The strongest unit in the United States should be the state. You have a federal unit, but it should be weaker. The strength is of course if the state retains that power because in moments of crisis, and I think all saw some sort of crisis over the last two or three years, a state can decide in some matters differently then the federal level can because of the power of the state.
And this is something that we observe in Europe, there is a strong tendency to uniformization and to centralism in Europe. Brussels wants to call the shots even inside of other countries. And subsidiarity says the lower level should do what the lower level will do, and the higher level should only interfere if it’s only the higher level that can handle that. And that of course leads to some people wanting to tell the Hungarians what kind of laws they’re allowed to do in their country. And the Hungarians don’t take well to that. And this is one of the reasons of conflict. For instance, the Austria Hungarian Empire, when it went well, and I’m talking about the second half of the 19th century and up to the beginning of the first World War, if that meant that every parliamentarian could speak in their language and that discussions sometimes took three times as long, then that was the case because you respected the single languages.
And this is beautiful because it’s a bit like what we said about the dinner table when the younger siblings learned from the elder ones. But the elder learned that you cannot just talk loudly and talk over your younger siblings because at some point, your younger sister that has tried three times to say something will run out crying, and then you’ll have to bring her back in and give her some space and listen to her. And you will not get the food first, even if you’re huge and hungry and smelly because your youngest brother will get first. And you learn to respect every single member of the family. And I think that’s a recipe that’s very important for our society nowadays.
Eric Sammons:
Or they’ll throw, the younger sibling will throw a bowl at their older sibling to get them to be quiet.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
That might also happen.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes. Yes.
Eric Sammons:
I want to start to wrap this up and I’m not going to ask you who your favorite Habsburg is in history, but I am going to ask you to maybe name two or three Habsburg that you mentioned in the book that from history, you had, of course on Twitter, you had the poll over the past week or two of whose everybody favorite Habsburg is and I believe Blessed Karl won and Empress Maria.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Maria Teresa.
Eric Sammons:
Maria Teresa, yeah right, won. And so who would you say are kind of like maybe two or three that stand out to you as real examples that we can look to today? And you can’t use Blessed Karl or Servant of God Zita because we all know they are.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
No. No, no.
Eric Sammons:
But who else would you say?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
One very good criterion for me was, who among the Habsburgs checked the boxes for all seven of my rules for turbulent times. And who perhaps for six or five, I did this sort of inefficiently. While in every chapter when I wrote about one of those principles, I always looked which names pop up again and again and again and again. I would say among my favorite top three or four are most definitely Emperor Maximilian the Last Knight. He was a larger than live character that died at the beginning of the 16th century, but in his youth still grew up like a knight and did jousting and tournaments at the time when the knights had long since ceased to be, he was a dreamer. He was incredibly strong, agile, a great fighter, a great poet. He wrote several books. He was friends with Dura, he was friends with all the great artists of his time. He married the most beautiful princess in the world and the richest.
And to read that story, you have to buy my book and read that story, the story of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy who made it into the second round in my Habsburg championship, at least I’m very proud of that. Maximilian is definitely, I love Magdalena of Austria. She was a daughter of Emperor Ferdinand the I. Just a second, I still have this cold. And she decided she wanted to become a nun and found the monastery and her father said, “No way.” When she was young, she was painted by Arcimboldo, and you can Google her image Archduchess Magdalena by Arcimboldo. He said, “No, no, I’m going to marry off. You’re not going to monastery.” And then she talked to him again and she also had as a confessor Saint Peter Canisius the famous Jesuit saint. In the end, the father relented and said, “You can found a monastery.”
And she founded a monastery with two of her sisters in Hall in Tyrol. And they had quite a large group of nuns there. And then she began working for Counter Reformation in the country of Tyrol, educating people, spreading good writings against Protestant ideas. But the highlight came when the Pope tried to approach the Habsburgs for getting on the train, getting on the team for Counter Reformation because the Emperor was not very impressive at that time. But Magdalena arranged a meeting with two of her brothers and with the Duke of Bavaria. And from there, basically the Counter Reformation in Austria was born. This was one woman who followed what God told her. This is another one that I love very much. And… Oh, there are so many.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes. I won’t mention Blessed Karl. Have I mentioned Blessed Karl? No, I won’t mention Blessed Karl.
Eric Sammons:
I think those are two very good examples that you gave of just some of the greatness that is part of your family in history and how they’ve affected-
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
I’ll give you another, I give you two others. I have a great love for Maria Antoinette, the doomed wife of Louis XVI, who became, she was somehow a mediocre woman all her life and she became really great in the last months of her life where she really grew and grew and she was a giant at the end. But then Leopoldina, the daughter of Franz II, who was married off to Brazil and became Empress of Brazil and really enthusiastically took over the Brazilian national idea and also designed the Brazilian flag, the current one. And whenever I mentioned Leopoldina on Twitter, there is always Brazilians flocking to and saying, “Our empress, our empress.” You see the Habsburg quality also worked when you took a Habsburg and plopped him or her somewhere totally different. Didn’t always work out well like with Maximilian. But Leopoldina is a very positive example.
Eric Sammons:
Yes, very much so. Now, before we let you go here, do you have any plans to visit the United States anytime soon?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Absolutely. I’m going to be in the States in the first week of May, going to land be two, three days around Philadelphia after the 1st of May. And then I’m going to be two or three days around Washington D.C. and there’re going to be events where I’m going to do readings and then I might be in the Nashville area. I’ll have about a week in the States.
Eric Sammons:
And how can people find out about your plans and where you will be, follow you on Twitter? Is that probably the best way?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes, the best way is always follow me on Twitter. I have an active Twitter account. I wouldn’t say haven’t got one unpublished thought, but I tweet a lot and I’m still on the level of followers where I can interact and answer almost anybody who writes to me, who reaches out. And I gladly do that. Follow me on Twitter and you will know what’s going on and where you can see or meet me.
Eric Sammons:
I’ll put a link to Eduard’s Twitter account in the descriptions so people can follow you. I do recommend it. It’s a great follow. It just, it’s always fun to see what you’re tweet tweeting. I also do like your interaction with people, like you said, we poll over the past few weeks of everybody’s favorite Habsburg and that was very entertaining as well. Definitely follow that. And so when he’s in the United States, those who are in the United States, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., perhaps Nashville, you said. I think that that sounds great. People can check you out in person, so that would be great.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Yes. And you will also see me on podcasts and other YouTube channels over the next weeks. I love the United States very, very much. You can tell many of my followers are from the states. The book is written for readers in the United States and yes, I’m looking forward to meeting you in one or any other way out there.
Eric Sammons:
That’s right. Yeah, that’d be great. I just want to recommend everybody, I’ll put a link to how to buy this book, The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times. Highly recommend. I was privileged to be able to get a draft of it before it came out. Read it. I think it took me like a day or two, I just read right through it and excellent. I knew it was going to be a good one. And it’s coming out this week from Sophia Institute Press, well actually at Crisis Mag, Crisis Magazine’s website, we’ll have a direct link to buy it as well. If you want, you can buy it directly from us as well. Yeah, we’re looking forward to it coming out and everybody checking it out.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Thank you very much Eric, for having me on the fantastic Crisis Point and I’m a fan of Crisis Magazine and of you of course. And-
Eric Sammons:
Thank you very much.
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
Do follow him too, its worthwhile.
Eric Sammons:
Thank you very much. Yeah, we really appreciate. I look forward to seeing again. We were able to meet at last year’s Blessed at Karl Symposium. Hopefully we’ll be able to run. I was able to be your driver briefly, so that was a lot of fun. And we can, hopefully we can do that again and maybe you’ll drive me around sometime. Maybe I’ll come out there someday and you’ll drive me around. How’s that sound?
Archduke Eduard Habsburg:
I hope to drive you through Rome. Gladly.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. There we go. There we go. Okay, everybody, we will wrap it up here. Until next time, God love you.