Two Soldiers Advance to Sainthood

The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints issued a decree today recognizing the “offering of life” of two men who served in the military of their respective nations, the American Army chaplain Fr Emil Kapaun (1916-51), and an Italian carabiniere named Salvo D’Acquisto (1920-43. The carabinieri are a national police force similar to the FBI, but are part of the Italian army.) The term “offering of life” is used in reference to Saints who did not die for the Faith in the strict sense, that is, they were not killed out of hatred of the Faith, nor in defense of it, but who met their deaths heroically and as an act of Christian charity. (The most famous example in our era would certainly be St Maximilian Kolbe.) They should now be formally known with the title “Venerable”. 

Left: The Venerable Fr Emil Kapaun, chaplain of the United States Army and captain, awarded the Medal of Honor and the Bronze Star. Photograph taken in 1950, shortly before his departure for Korea.

Right: The Venerable Salvo D’Acquisto, Vice-brigadier of the Italian carabinieri; photographed ca. 1939, age 19.

Fr Kapaun was born in 1916 to a Kansas farming family of German-Bohemian descent, and entered seminary formation at Conception Abbey in Conception, Missouri in 1930; he studied theology at Kenrick Seminary in St Louis, and was ordained a priest for his home diocese in 1940. After being appointed by his bishop as an assistant chaplain at a local Army base during World War II, he felt called to enter the military chaplaincy full-time, and was granted permission to do so in July of 1944. He finished his training in March of the following year, and was sent to the Asian theater, serving in Burma and India as the war was coming to an end. In recognition of his service, he was promoted to captain in January 1946.

In early 1950, he was sent to serve with the occupying American forces in Japan, but when South Korea was attacked by the North in June of that year, his unit was one of the first to be shipped over in its defense. His service in the field of combat was exemplary, not only for his assiduous celebration of the Sacraments, but also for his assistance to the wounded, and recovery and burial of the dead. After barely more than two weeks on the battlefield, he earned a Bronze Star for rescuing a wounded soldier in the midst of heavy enemy fire. He was always particularly careful to write to the families of the fallen to let them know that their loved ones had died with the ministrations of a priest.

A famous photograph of Fr Kapaun celebrating Mass on the hood of his jeep, Oct. 7, 1950. 

In later September of 1950, the United Nations forces, led by those of the United States, launched a counter-offensive which within a little more than a month pushed the invading Communist forces back almost to the Chinese border. In early November, however, China invaded in defense of North Korea, and in the course of this new phase of the war, Fr Kapaun’s battalion was taken prisoner. They were held in a POW camp in Pyoktong, in the extreme north of enemy territory, in appalling conditions; it is reported that the prisoners died at the rate of more than twenty a day.

Despite his own sufferings, Fr Kapaun continued to serve the men with extraordinary heroism, giving them his own meager food, sneaking out of the camp to steal more food for them, washing those who were too weak to wash themselves, and visiting the men under cover of darkness, which was strictly forbidden, in order to pray with them and keep up their spirits. In May of 1951, he succumbed to pneumonia, aggravated by long-standing malnutrition. A few years after the 1953 Korean armistice, his remains were repatriated to the United States. He is buried in the cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, Kansas.

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Chris Riggs, CC BY-SA 4.0

Salvo D’Acquisto was born in Naples in 1920, the eldest of eight children, and enrolled in the carabinieri as a volunteer in 1939, shortly before the outbreak of World War II. After serving for two years in Libya, which was then an Italian colony, and being wounded in fighting with the English, he returned to Italy, and was sent to an officer training school in Florence. Upon graduating as a vice-brigadier, he was posted in late 1942 to a small rural town called Castello di Torre in Pietra, about 15 miles to the west of Rome.

In July of 1943, shortly after the Allies invaded Sicily, Benito Mussolini, who had ruled the country since 1922, was removed from power and arrested by order of the king, resulting in a complete collapse of Italian military forces abroad, and civil war at home. In the midst of the chaos, the region where D’Acquisto was stationed was occupied by the Germans. On the evening of September 22, two of their soldiers were killed, and two others wounded, by an accidental explosion while they were inspecting an abandoned munitions depot in the area. The German military authorities, believing this to be an act of deliberate sabotage on the part of the locals, demanded that the carabinieri cooperate with their investigation.

At the time, there was in effect a standing order that such acts should be met with reprisals against the civilian population at a ratio of ten for every soldier killed. The next morning, Salvo attempted to persuade the Germans that the explosion was accidental, but his plea was rejected. Twenty-four residents of the area were arrested and brought to the nearby town of Palidoro; Salvo was seized at his station and brought there under armed guard. After insisting upon their innocence, the men were given shovels and forced to dig a mass grave for themselves.

When he realized that the Germans intended to make good on the threat and kill them all, Salvo stepped forward and proclaimed that he alone was responsible for what had happened. At this, the prisoners were set free, and D’Acquisto was shot by a firing squad. He was 22 years old. Even the German officers themselves recognized the nobility of his sacrifice of his own life to save the innocent, saying to some of the locals, “Your brigadier died a hero, unmoved in the face of death.” Initially interred in the area, he was removed after the war to a military cemetery near Naples, and in 1986, to a chapel of the basilica of St Clare in the city itself.

The monument on the site of his execution in Palidoro. 

His grave in the basilica of St Clare in Naples. (© José Luiz Bernardes Ribeiro, CC BY-SA 4.0)

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

“Thank Goodness Fulton Sheen’s Cause Has Been Suspended” - An Excellent Article on Canonizations

It is not my intention to wade into the controversy which has recently arisen between the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Peoria, concerning the relics of the Venerable Fulton Sheen, a controversy which has for the moment led to the suspension of the cause for his beatification and eventual canonization. However, I do strongly recommend to all of our readers that they go over and read this article at the website of Crisis magazine. The author, Dr Donald Prudlo, is an expert on the causes of Saints and the canonization process, both in its historical traditions and current practice, and he offers several valuable insights into the reasons why Saints should be canonized slowly.

... the cause has been slowed down. This is encouraging in the age of fast-tracked canonizations which tend to minimize the gravity of such elevations, bound up as they are with historical affirmations of papal infallibility. It is good to slow processes, indeed sometimes stop them altogether. Cults should arise out of spontaneous devotion and proper ecclesial supervision and care. Saints should be “from the ground up” as it were. Saints were never intended to be top-down impositions of models of life or patterns of holiness dictated by mere authority. Cults should be allowed to spread organically, and sometimes be permitted to die out of their own accord, with careful shepherding by Church authorities. This is why the old fifty-year rule was in place. This should permit enough time to make sure that a cult was genuine, that it was a result of the unfolding of an authentic discernment of holiness in the life of the Church, and provides the needed leisure for the operations of the various complex tasks associated with presenting a cause. The Church should not conform itself to this age of instant gratification, with its attendant shallowness. The old rule also provided a cooling-off period so that people too intimately involved in the life and career of the potential saint had been mostly laid in their graves. Unfortunately a kind of historical chauvinism afflicts many today, thinking that they either live in the darkest times in Church history or in the “broad, sunlit uplands” of Pollyanna-ish progressivism. The endurance of a cult long after the principals are dead is a telling mark of its validity.

When a cause is rushed, questions arise both inside and outside the Church as to the thoroughness of the case, and issues swirl about motivations. Are people promoting a cause instead of a person? Are the authorities attempting to impose someone artificially, independent of genuine public cult? Are agendas, movements, ethnicities, or states in life being canonized instead of an unrepeatable singular exemplar of God’s transforming grace?

From Romania: Ceremony in Honor of the Blessed Vladmir Ghika, Priest and Martyr

Several days ago we reported on the Beatification of Mons. Vladimir Ghika, a priest martyred by the Communist regime of Romania in 1954. Our reader Viviana Dimcev has sent some pictures of a ceremony held afterwards, at which an icon of him was blessed, and the following description of the event.

August 31st was a great day for Catholics in Romania. In the morning, the Holy Mass of Beatification of Mons. Vladimir Ghika was celebrated by Cardinal Angelo Amato; about twenty bishops, two-hundred priests of both the Latin and Byzantine rites, and eight-thousand faithful attended.

In the afternoon, at the Greek Catholic Vicarial Church of St Basil in Bucharest, H. E. Bishop Mihai Fratila, Greek Catholic Vicar of Bucharest, presided over a ceremony in the Byzantine Rite, during which he consecrated the icon of Blessed Vladimir Ghika, painted by the Rome-based Ukrainian Greek Catholic artist Ivan Karas.

The blessing of the icon was followed by the chanting of the Akathist Hymn of the new Blessed. A special guest was Cardinal Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris, in whose diocese Mons. Ghika was active before returning to his native country. All the members of Catholic Bishop Conference in Romania (of both Latin and Byzantine rites) attended. The well-known French writer, Fr. Daniel Ange, was also present. At the end of the ceremony, the faithful venerated the icon and the relics of Blessed Vladimir Ghika.

The event held a special significance for the Greek Catholic community in Bucharest, since the Church of St. Basil was built with the contribution of Blessed Vladimir Ghika, a bi-ritual priest held in great esteem by the Greek Catholic Church. He also gathered there a community of students in the years before World War II, lecturing to them and involving them in charitable works. In 1948 the church was confiscated by the Communist authorities and handed over to the Orthodox Church. It was only in 2006 that the Greek Catholic community regained the church. So it may be said that the Blessed Vladimir Ghika was coming home again.

The Greek-Catholic Vicariate of Bucharest has also posted a flickr album with almost 200 photographs from the event at St. Basil's. Our thanks to Viviana Dimcev for providing the links and information.

The new icon of Blesed Vladimir Ghika, Priest and Martyr.

St. Basil's Greek Catholic Church in Bucharest

A reliquary of Blessed Vladimir.

This and the pictures that follow are of the ceremony at which the icon of Vladmir Ghika was blessed by Bishop Fratila, as described by Mrs. Dimcev above.

 

The Beatification of Mons. Vladimir Ghika, Priest and Martyr in Romania

A reader from Romania, Viviana Dimcev, has sent us the following information about a Romanian priest, Mons. Vladimir Ghika, who will be beatified as a Martyr today, August 31. The Mass of Beatification will be celebrated in Bucharest, the capital of Romania, by Angelo Cardinal Amato, the prefect for the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.

A descendent of a princely family, Vladimir Ghika was born on Christmas Day of 1873 to an Orthodox family. After studying in France and Rome, he became Catholic in 1902. (Today, Catholics of both Latin and Byzantine Rite together make up just over 5% of the population of Romania; most of them, however, are in Transylvania, which was not part of Romania in 1902.) After years of dedication to various charitable works, he was ordained a priest in 1923, with faculties to celebrate the liturgy in both the Roman and Byzantine Rites. He traveled all over the world in service to his countrymen and the Holy See; he was the founder of a hospital in Bucharest, and served as an envoy of Pius XI, who jokingly called him his "apostolic vagabond".  Despite continued service to his country in the trials of the Second World War, he was arrested by the Communist authorities in 1952; after 18 months of violent beatings, cold and starvation, he passed to eternal life on May 16, 1954. This day will be kept as his feast day.

A Romanian website to promote his cause has the following prayer to ask for his intercession:

Lord, Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest, you sent your apostles and disciples into the whole world to bring the good news of your love to all peoples. At the Last Supper, just before your supreme self-offering for the Salvation of the world, you prayed to your Heavenly Father that your church might become One.
Look with kindness upon the people of Romania from whose midst you chose Vladimir Ghika, noble by birth and noble by vocation. He was your witness throughout the world, confirming his faith in you through his martyrdom, with the zeal of an apostle. May his example of faith and love shine ever more brightly amongst us.
During his earthly life, he accomplished great deeds of charity through your power and brought East and West together in harmony. We pray for the grace that through the merits and the sanctity of his martyrdom, he may be recognized as a saint and that through his intercession, in the near future, all Christians may be united. We ask this for your greater glory, you who live and reign for ever and ever. Amen.

Our reader also sent us a link to a video tour of a museum established by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Bucharest in his honor, in which various liturgical garments and other objects owned and used by Bl. Vladimir. Beate Vladimire, ora pro nobis!

Memorialul Muzeu Mons. Vladimir Ghika by arcbro

The Doctors of the Church in the Liturgy

This past Sunday, the Holy Father declared two new Doctors of the Church, the German Benedictine nun St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) and St. John of Avila, (1500-1569), a Spanish secular priest and renowned preacher. By this decree, the company of the Doctors is increased to 35, and the number of women among them to four; Saints Catherine of Siena and Theresa of Avila (a supporter of John of Avila in the reform of the Spanish Church) were made the first female Doctors in 1970, and St. Therese of Lisieux was given the title by Bl. John Paul II in 1997, a few days before the centenary of her death.

A banner with an image of St. Hildegard, here called a prophetess, suspended from the façade of St. Peter’s for the ceremony in which she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church.

It is often stated that the first four Doctors of the Church, Saints Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great, were proclaimed as such by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298. It is more accurate to say that the Pope formalized a long-established custom by ordering that their feasts be celebrated throughout the Latin Church with the same liturgical rank as the feasts of the Apostles and Evangelists. Already in the 8th century, the Venerable Bede cites the four of them as “most outstanding” among the Fathers of the Church, and the “most worthy” sources for his commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke, an assessment shared by many other writers in the following centuries. In art they are often associated with the four Evangelists; the medieval fondness for numerical symbolism in theology also tended to designate each one of them as the principal expounder of one of the four senses of the Sacred Scriptures. (See the introduction to the first volume of Henri Card. De Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis, pp. 4-7.)

In the liturgical tradition of the Roman Rite, the four Doctors are also associated with the four Evangelists in the collections of homilies read at Matins, in which each appears as the principal (but by no means sole) commentator on one of the four Gospels. Broadly speaking, St. Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew, St. Ambrose’s Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke, and St. Augustine’s Treatises on the Gospel of John are commonly read in all uses of the Divine Office. St. Mark rarely appears in the traditional Mass-lectionary of the Roman Rite, but does provide the Gospel on the greatest feast of the year, Easter, and on the Ascension; on both of these feasts, the homily at Matins in most uses is taken from St. Gregory. Therefore, the first sense in which a Father might be called a Doctor was the frequent use of his writings in the Church’s public worship.

St. Mark the Evangelist, with his traditional symbol, a winged lion, on the left, and St. Gregory the Great on the right, and a book of his sermons. From the ceiling of the church of Sant’Agostino in Cremona, Italy, by Bonfazio Bembo, 1452.

Of course, many other Fathers are frequently read in the Office; outside the Use of Rome, St. Bede is foremost among them in the medieval breviaries. As he himself notes in the prologue to the commentary mentioned above, he often borrows from the earlier Doctors; his gathering of the best passages from earlier writers makes his commentaries ideal for use in prayer services. So much of Bede’s writing is taken almost word for word from other works that the medieval copyists of liturgical manuscripts often confused his writings with his sources, and accidentally added passages from the latter back into his texts.

Also prominent in the public prayer of the Church are the writings of Saints Leo the Great, Hilary of Poitier (especially in France), and Maximus of Turin. Bede, Leo and Hilary have all subsequently been made Doctors themselves; St. Maximus, on the other hand, has been the object of almost no liturgical devotion, although he is noted in the Martyrology as a man “most celebrated for his learning and sanctity.” Indeed, his writings often appear in the breviaries under the name of some other saint, usually Augustine. In the 13th century, many of the writings of St. John Chrysostom were translated into Latin, and began to find their way into the Office; in the Roman Breviary of 1529, sermons by him are read on three of the four Sundays of Lent.

The Four Doctors of the Church, by Pier Francesco Sacchi, ca. 1516. Note that each is accompanied by a symbol of one of the four Evangelists.

The terms of Pope Boniface’s decree were carried over into the liturgical books of the Tridentine reform, which also added five other Doctors. Four of these were early Fathers of the Eastern church: Ss. Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus. (The third Cappadocian Father, Basil’s brother Gregory of Nyssa, has never been venerated liturgically by the Latin Church.) All of them appear in various pre-Tridentine liturgical books, but the feasts of Basil and Gregory are extremely rare. In the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church was greatly concerned to assert that its teachings were those held “always, everywhere and by all”, and not medieval corruptions introduced by the “Romish Church”; the pairing of four Eastern Doctors with the traditional four Western Doctors therefore asserts the universality of the teachings held by Rome and defended by the Council of Trent. Three of them also have special connections to Rome and the Papacy. During the second of his five exiles, St. Athanasius was a guest of Pope St. Julius I, who defended him against the Arian heretics; relics of Ss. John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus were saved from the iconoclasts in the 8th century and brought to Rome, later to be placed in St. Peter’s Basilica.

The Chair of St. Peter in the Vatican Basilica, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1655-61. The Doctors standing further from the chair and wearing mitres are Saints Ambrose and Augustine, those closer but without mitres are Saints Athanasius and John Chrysostom.

To this group the Dominican Pope St. Pius V added a new Doctor, his confrere St. Thomas Aquinas. Like many great theologians of the medieval period, Thomas was frequently referred to as a Doctor both in liturgical contexts and elsewhere; thus we find the calendar of a 1477 Dominican Missal noting his feast day, “Thomas, Confessor and Doctor, of the Order of Preachers.” A famous story is told that during the process of his canonization, the devil’s advocate objected that he had worked no miracles, to which a cardinal replied “Tot miracula quot articula – there are as many miracles as there are articles (in the two Summas).” During the Council of Trent, his Summa Theologica was placed on the altar of the church alongside the Bible and the Decretals (the medieval canon law code, a copy of which was also burnt by Luther, along with his bull of excommunication.) Thus did the Council assert that its teachings, and those of the medieval tradition of both law and theology, were indeed in harmony with the teachings of Christ in the Gospel.

In 1588, Pope Sixtus V, a Franciscan and former vicar apostolic of his order, declared his confrere St. Bonaventure, the contemporary of St. Thomas, the tenth Doctor of the Church. Although another Franciscan, Duns Scotus, generally known as the “Subtle Doctor”, was far more influential at Trent, he had not been canonized; this emphasizes the fact that a Doctor of the Church in the formal sense must be recognized not only for his learning, but also for the sanctity of his life. Bonaventure had been canonized in 1472 by an earlier Franciscan Pope, Sixtus IV, (more famously the builder of the Sistine Chapel), in whose honor Sixtus V had chosen his papal name. (Duns Scotus was declared a Blessed in 1993.)

St. Bonaventure shows the Saints to Dante, from Canto 12 of the Paradise of the Divine Comedy. The majority of figures pointed out to Dante in this passage are famous theologians: St. Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Comestor, Chrysostom, Anselm, and Rabanus Maurus. (Manuscript illumination by Giovanni di Paolo, 1450)

In 1720, Pope Clement XI added a new Doctor of the Church, St. Anselm of Canterbury. This may seem a strange choice, given the many more prominent Fathers of the Church such as Leo and Bede who had not yet received the title. The Catholic Encyclopedia points out that Anselm’s contribution to Scholastic theology is like the foundation of a building: hidden but necessary, and present to every part. It seems however that at the time, the creation of the first new Doctor in 140 years was not seen as a matter of such great importance; it is not even mentioned in the official collection of Pope Clement’s acts, spanning a reign of over 20 years.

St. Anselm was quickly followed by two other new Doctors; St. Isidore of Seville, the great encyclopedist of the Middle Ages, was given the title in 1722 by Innocent XIII, and St. Peter Chrysologus by Benedict XIII in 1729. After a break of 25 years, Benedict XIV, one of the Church’s greatest scholars of hagiography, bestowed the title on St. Leo the Great, to whom more than any other of the Latin Fathers the honor was long overdue.

There then followed a pause of more than 70 years, until St. Peter Damian was given the title in 1828 by Pope Leo XII; subsequently, almost every Pope has declared at least one Doctor. (The exceptions are Gregory XVI, St. Pius X and the short-lived John Paul I.) Blessed Pius IX actually made three, including the first “modern”, St. Alphonse Liguori (1696-1787), but the record is four each by Leo XIII and Pius XI. The former’s Doctors are all of the Patristic era (including another long overdue honor, to St. Bede), while the latter recognized the fruits of the Counter-Reformation in two Jesuits, Ss. Robert Bellarmine and Peter Canisius, balanced with a Dominican, St. Albert the Great, the teacher of St. Thomas.

Dante meets Ss. Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great in Canto 10 of the Paradise, among the lovers of divine wisdom. Beneath them are Boethius, St. Denis the Areopagite, Gratian, Peter Lombard, Paul Orosius, Solomon, St. Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede, Richard of St. Victor and Siger of Brabant. (Giovanni di Paolo, 1450. Note that Siger, the last figure on the right, who was regarded by many as a heretic, has been partly scratched out.)

Like Hildegard of Bingen, Albert was declared both a Saint and a Doctor of the Church at the same time. The parallels between these two Germans are striking. Both were extremely learned in many different fields of study, and famous in their own lifetimes, so much so that Albert was often called “the Universal Doctor”, and Hildegard “the Sibyl of the Rhine”. For both, a formal process of canonization was begun repeatedly but never completed (7 times between them); and both were rather unexpectedly canonized equivalently by papal granting of the title “Doctor” and the extension of their feasts to the General Calendar. (See the Catholic Encyclopedia article on “Beatification and canonization”, for an explanation of ‘equivalent canonization’.)

A famous vision of the Cosmic Man from the Book of the Divine Works by St. Hildegard of Bingen. (Biblioteca Statale, Lucca, Italy, 13th century)

The traditional Office of a Doctor is that of a Confessor Bishop or a simple Confessor, with a few proper features; namely, the readings of Matins, the responsory In medio Ecclesiae, (borrowed from the Office of St. John the Evangelist), and the antiphon of the Magnificat at both Vespers, O Doctor optime. The Missal of St. Pius V contains a single Mass for Doctors, also called In medio Ecclesiae from its introit; but several of their feasts have their own propers or borrow them from other Masses. Many saints have been informally recognized as Doctors within a particular place or religious order by the use of these texts on their feast days; In medio was sung by the Cistercians as the introit of St. Bernard long before he was formally declared a Doctor in 1830, and several parts of the same Mass are used by the Dominicans on the feasts of St. Dominic and the great canon lawyer St. Raymund of Penyafort.

One notable point of difference between the pre- and post-conciliar liturgies is the absence in the former of any reference to the title of Doctor being given to women. If at some point in the future provision is made in the Extraordinary Form for the new class of Virgin Doctors, it would be sensible to use texts from traditional sources, such as the many medieval antiphons that refer to the “wise virgins” in St. Matthew 25. Another excellent source would be the proper Carmelite Office of St. Theresa of Avila, who was also spoken of informally as a Doctor by her own order long before the title was made official by the Pope. (E.g., all the chapters of her Office come from the same epistle that is read on the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.) At the Magnificat of First Vespers, the Carmelites sing “I sought to take her to Me as my spouse, for she is the teacher (doctrix) of God’s discipline, and the chooser of His works.”, and at Second Vespers, “The nations will tell of her wisdom, and the Church will proclaim her praise.”

Cause of Beatification of Empress Zita Opened

Many readers will rejoice - fittingly on this Gaudete Sunday - to learn that last Thursday, 10 December 2009, the Cause of Beatification of the Servant of God Zita, last Empress of Austria and wife of Blessed Emperor Charles, was solemnly opened by His Excellency Msgr. Yves Le Saux, Bishop of Le Mans, France. The process was opened in Le Mans, and not in the Swiss diocese of Chur, where the Empress died 20 years ago in 1989 in Zizers, with the consent of Msgr. Huonder, the Bishop of Chur, and the permission of the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints, because within the diocese of Le Mans is situated the Abbey of Solesmes, well known to NLM readers for its leading rôle in the early liturgical movement in the 19th century, especially regarding Gregorian chant, and which was the spiritual center of the Servant of God Zita, her home among her many exiles.


The ties of the Empress with Solesmes go back to 1909 when after studying with the Visitandine Sisters at Zangberg, Bavaria, she briefly went to study with the Benedictine nuns of the abbey of St. Cecilia of Solesmes, the female sister-abbey of St. Peter of Solesmes, likewise founded by Dom Guéranger, then in exile on the Isle of Wight in England. Her sisters Princesses Maria della Neve Adelaide, Francesca, and Maria Antonia of Bourbon-Parma were all nuns of St. Cecilia abbey. Zita herself later, in 1926, became an Oblate of St. Peter's Abbey of Solesmes. She also received a papal indult allowing her to spend three months of each year within the enclosure of St. Cecilia's abbey. All counted, the Empress spent about 1400 days at Solesmes, i.e. almost 4 years. Her intense spiritual life included, after rising each day at 5:30 a.m., praying part of the Office, hearing several daily Masses (usually three), and reciting the Rosary. If she is raised to the altars, she will also especially be the model of a wife - the deep religiosity of their marriage being exemplified by the famous words of her husband, Bl. Charles, on their wedding day: "Now we must help each other into heaven!", and significantly, their wedding day, 21 October, has already been appointed as the Feast Day of Bl. Charles - and of a widow, a concept sadly very much neglected in the modern age.

This is the official prayer to implore the Beatification of the Servant of God Zita, Empress and Queen:

God our Father, you redeemed the world by the self-abasement of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He who was King became the Servant of all and gave his life as a ransom for many, therefore you have exalted him.

We ask you that your servant Zita, Empress and Queen, will be raised upon the altars of your Church. In her, you have given us a great example of faith and hope in the face of trials, and of unshakeable trust in your Divine Providence.

We beseech you that alongside her husband, the Blessed Emperor Charles, Zita will become for couples a model of married love and fidelity, and for families a guide in the ways of a truly Christian upbringing. May she who in all circumstances opened her heart to the needs of others, especially the poor and needy, be for us all an example of service and love of neighbour.

Through her intercession, grant our petition (mention here the graces you are asking for). Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

1 Pater, 3 Ave, 1 Gloria Patri

Imprimatur : 09/07/2009
† Mgr. Yves Le Saux
Bishop of Le Mans (France).

Those who have received graces through the intercession of the Servant of God, Empress Zita, should contact:

Association for the Beatification of Empress Zita
Abbaye Saint-Pierre
1, place Dom Guéranger
72300 Solesmes, France

Some images, videos and links which may be of interest:

The Servant of God and Blessed Charles on their wedding day:



The Empress on the day of her coronation as Apostolic Queen of Hungary:


Her private chapel at her exile in Québec:


A video of her funeral in Vienna, including the famous dialogue at the gate of the Capuchin Crypt:

The herold taps three time on the gate with his rod.

Capuchin friar: "Who begs entrance?"

Herold: "Her Majesty Zita, by the grace of God Empress of Austria, Apostolic Queen of Hungary, Queen of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria and Illyria, Queen of Jerusalem etc.; Archduchess of Austria, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Cracow, Duchess of Lorraine, Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola and Bucovina; Grand Princesse of Transylvania, Margravine of Moravia; Duchess of Upper and Lower Silesia, Modena, Piacenza and Guastalla, of Auschwitz, Zator, Teschen, Friuli, Ragusa and Zara; Princely Countess of Habsburg and Tyrol, Kyburg, Görz and Gradisca; Princess of Trent and Brixen; Margravine of Upper and Lower Lusatia and in Istria; Countess of Hohenems, Feldkirch, Bregenz and Sonnenberg, etc.; Lady of Triest, Cattaro and in the Windic march; Grand Voivode of the Voivodeship of Serbia; née Princess Royal of Bourbon, Princess of Parma, etc."

Capuchin friar: "We know her not."

The herold knocks again.

Capuchin friar: "Who begs entrance?"

Herold: "Her Majesty Zita, Empress and Queen."

Capuchin friar: "We know her not."

The herold knocks for the third time.

Capuchin friar: "Who begs entrance?"

Herold: "Zita, a mortal, sinful man."

This is the website if the Diocese of Le Mans for the cause, where you can listen, inter alia, to the Bishop and the Abbot Solesmes (in French): link.

And this is the website of the Association mentioned above, with a lot of biographical information, images, and videos; most of it is only in French so far: link.