His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, Karl the First, By the Grace of God, Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, of this name the Fourth, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and Galicia, Lodomeria, and Illyria; King of Jerusalem etc., Archduke of Austria; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow, Duke of Lorraine and of Salzburg, of Styria, of Carinthia, of Carniola and of the Bukovina; Grand Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, of Modena, Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz and Zator, of Teschen, Friuli, Ragusa and Zara; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol, of Kyburg, Gorizia and Gradisca; Prince of Trent and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria; Count of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Sonnenberg, etc.; Lord of Trieste, of Cattaro, and in the Wendish Mark; Grand Voivode of the Voivodship of Serbia, etc. etc.

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An Emperor Karl Alert (TM) from, of all things, The Orlando Sentinel:

The last ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire moved a little closer to Roman Catholic sainthood Thursday, thanks to a Baptist woman from Kissimmee who claims the monarch's intercession saved her from metastatic breast cancer.

More here. Who says my home state doesn't have a place in the Catholic imagination?

The article is a decent little writeup, with relatively few mistakes, though as usual, it closes with a cretinously grand-standing quote from Fr. Reese (yes, that Fr. Reese), of the aptly-named Woodstock Seminary at Georgetown, managing to combine Wilsonian vulgarity with felt-banner theology, asking for no more canonized "kings or princes or bishops...We need to find saints that connect to ordinary people," which is deeply ironic given the remarkable domestic ordinariness of Blessed Karl's heroic virtue, realized just as in the theater of his relationship with his wife Zita of Bourbon-Parma as much in his wise (if incredibly badly-timed) reign. His words to her before their wedding speak volumes: "Now, we must help each other to get to Heaven."

And, in an election year, I would think reminding big-shots that they are answerable to Something Other than opinion polls would be of great benefit to us normalburgers in the pews. The veneration of a saintly emperor is a very different thing from the frantic secular millenarianism of modern politics and the soft-brained cult of celebrity that attaches itself to celebs like Diana and Fergie.

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"Emperor Karl is the only decent man to come out of the war in a leadership position, yet he was a saint and no one listened to him. He sincerely wanted peace, and therefore was despised by the whole world. It was a wonderful chance that was lost." ~Anatole France

Tip of the Magyar Szent Korona to alert reader Rob.