The Michael Knowles Show - Rules For Life： Michael Speaks with Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen

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00:00:26.120 31st, 2025. TD. Ready for you. It is Theology Thursday and I am so pleased to be joined by my

00:00:34.700 friend, the Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta, Archduke Edward

00:00:42.200 Habsburg. Edward, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me on the show. Edward, your first

00:00:49.580 book, you came on to discuss The Habsburg Way. I thought it was an absolutely marvelous book. I have

00:00:55.520 multiple copies of it in my home library. That way I can offer it to people. If they come by,

00:01:01.260 they can get a little bit of advice. And it was largely about your family, the history of the

00:01:06.420 Habsburgs, and how the Habsburgs were able to become an illustrious family and a flourishing family

00:01:13.000 and a little bit of advice that maybe people might be able to glean today. Your new book,

00:01:19.020 Building a Wholesome Family in a Broken World, which everyone should stop what they're doing,

00:01:24.060 pull over, whatever you're doing, go order it right now. It is superb, building a wholesome

00:01:30.280 family in a broken world. It's a little bit more direct. It's a little less, there's some family

00:01:36.760 biography in there too, autobiography in there too, but it is much blunter. It is, hey, guy,

00:01:43.080 you know, it's reaching out, shaking people by the shoulders and saying, this is how you do it.

00:01:46.980 You're confused. You don't know what to do. It's a confusing time. Here is how you build a family.

00:01:52.320 Because, as you point out, the family is the little society. The family is the fundamental

00:01:57.520 unit of politics. So, Edward, what's your advice?

00:02:03.900 Well, first of all, in scriptwriting, I was a scriptwriter for a while. They say, write what you

00:02:10.540 know. So, I thought I'd write about what I know and what I knew for the last about 30 years was

00:02:18.320 family, lots of children, and a happy, fulfilling marriage. And then I look around and I see that

00:02:25.120 this is not what happens everywhere. It's not exactly the normal way nowadays. Most people

00:02:30.800 have changing relationships, don't have children, don't even find a good spouse, and go about it all

00:02:39.220 the wrong way at least. And what I'm trying to do in my book is to give you a bit of advice for that,

00:02:46.220 peppered with Habsburg stories from the centuries. But it's mostly my experiences in the family and

00:02:52.600 how to go about it, how to find a good spouse. I have a bucket list, a checklist, how to check off 0.91

00:03:00.200 that girl or that guy before you decide to get engaged. It's a breezy little read. I think you

00:03:07.020 can read it rather fast. And I'm repeating things that were absolutely known to everybody for the

00:03:12.920 last 2,000, nay, 10,000 years, but have suddenly fallen out of favor somewhere after the 60s.

00:03:19.380 So, I'm afraid Habsburg has to step up and talk about it.

00:03:23.660 You mentioned that you're a former scriptwriter. And I think, I don't know my history perfectly,

00:03:30.200 I think you might be the only Habsburg that's ever written a zombie movie. Is that right?

00:03:36.020 I suppose I am. I suppose I am. Unfortunately, it was never produced. But if you have half an hour,

00:03:42.960 I can tell you the plot.

00:03:44.380 Well, that's very good. Maybe we can get to that after the slightly more urgent matter of

00:03:48.260 how people find a spouse, have a good family. People write into my show all the time. It might

00:03:53.940 be the most frequent question I get. How do I date? How do I meet somebody? They say,

00:04:00.360 I'm on the dating apps, and I'm not doing well on the dating apps on my phone, or I don't want

00:04:05.400 to be on the dating apps. So, how do I meet a spouse? How do I know if my spouse is the right

00:04:10.500 one? How do I balance work and personal life? When do I know if I'm ready to have children?

00:04:18.260 How many children should I have? Should I date? Should I go have a career before? So,

00:04:24.920 amid all that confusion with which you're certainly familiar, at least from a distance,

00:04:30.420 what do you tell them?

00:04:33.240 Well, I tell them, go about it the old-fashioned way.

00:04:36.900 I tell them, teach your children before they even enter the dating market that they shouldn't go 0.98

00:04:44.680 for one relationship after the other, and also intimate relationships, but to put all your money

00:04:50.540 on red. Make one big shot for a lifelong, happy, fulfilling marriage. And in order to do that,

00:04:59.460 you have to set a few stops before you even get closer, engage to a potential spouse. And you have

00:05:07.340 to really use your brain. You have to use your brain. And in my book, I have a series of five

00:05:14.460 points that you, but I have to stop here. Most people tell me, I don't even know where to find

00:05:21.440 someone who might be a potential spouse, as you said, on my dating apps. And it's right,

00:05:27.200 if you want to have a long, fulfilling, happy marriage, you're looking for someone very special,

00:05:33.240 and you probably won't find him in the pub around the corner or on some frivolous dating app. But

00:05:40.180 what you're shooting for is someone who shares your values, who shares your faith, who shares your

00:05:46.100 idea of family, who is chaste. I'm using the word chastity quite a lot. You know the joke,

00:05:51.720 two friends meet, and one of them says, I've got exciting news for you. I made a vow of chastity,

00:05:59.040 obedience, and poverty. And the other one says, ah, you're getting married. So what I'm saying is,

00:06:07.500 you should look for someone really special. And that someone really special is not

00:06:11.060 in the first meaning, someone hot and attractive, but someone you can spend an entire life with.

00:06:19.120 And so first, first criterion, you have to check whether the other person shares your faith. I'm

00:06:25.760 not talking about having been baptized in the Catholic faith. I'm talking about God is a center

00:06:32.140 of my life. My prayer life is a center of my life. That's the kind of person you're looking for.

00:06:37.480 Um, the second, because without faith, I have no clue how somebody would, would master all the

00:06:44.840 complicated, difficult things that happened during a long life of marriage with children.

00:06:50.280 Um, so faith, the second point is family. You have to understand whether the other person

00:06:56.040 is ready to have a big family. And that's the core message of my book is in my first book,

00:07:03.220 I wrote, get married and have lots of children. I think that is the greatest healing power for our

00:07:09.360 society. For all the complications we have in our dating life. We need families with lots of children

00:07:16.100 just so that people can for once in their life encounter a numerous family. You only meet families

00:07:24.020 with one to two and a half maximum children in publicity, in movies, in series, wherever.

00:07:32.260 Um, you should meet families with five, six, seven children. The joy of being with such a family is

00:07:39.940 so great. It was that experience for me as a child that let me believe I want to have a big family one day.

00:07:45.940 So, but the other thing is that if you have lots of children, it's the greatest gift the spouses can

00:07:50.900 give each other. It's the greatest gift you can give to the children. A big family will get you

00:07:56.500 strength for your life. You learn all the virtues that you need for life just by being a big family

00:08:03.380 and it will heal society. Um, I profoundly believe that a society built on the bricks of numerous family

00:08:13.780 is a more just, more merciful, more compassionate society. And, uh, so yeah, so you, you want to check

00:08:20.820 whether the other person is ready for a big family and a big family means sacrifices. It means you might

00:08:26.260 not be able to have an apartment in the swank part of town. It means you might not have that cool job

00:08:32.100 that you want because you have to live somewhere where you can afford to have a big family. It also means

00:08:37.460 very old fashioned, very reactionary. That is probably a good idea that at least one of the parents,

00:08:43.700 ideally the mother remains at home, at least when the children are small. Now people immediately 0.87

00:08:48.500 say impossible, impossible, impossible. You can't even afford the family if you, if even one of the

00:08:55.300 parents stays at home. I don't think that's true. We live in the most prosperous and secure society ever

00:09:03.460 and we can't afford children. I can't believe it. A great, that's a great point. Uh, you know,

00:09:08.260 sure there is a disparity of wealth. There, there are people who have zillions of dollars and others

00:09:15.460 who, you know, they worry about their bills, but by historical standards, basically everyone today

00:09:21.700 is extraordinarily rich. So if people a hundred or 50 or 40 years ago were able to have five, six,

00:09:30.020 seven children, why can't you, you say in the book that, uh, uh, this is the first way to instill

00:09:36.260 family values in the, in the kids is just to have a large family there. You're beginning with the

00:09:40.740 family value from the moment that your kids really become conscious. Uh, I think that's such a beautiful

00:09:46.300 idea, especially the idea of the family as the little society, as the microcosm of, of all of

00:09:52.020 society. Uh, so the chastity is going to be hard for people because there's a hookup culture and

00:09:56.980 everybody sleeps around, you know, from the age of like 13 or something. I don't know, you know,

00:10:00.940 it's, it gets younger and younger specifically with a public school. So how do you deal with

00:10:06.700 chastity or people who have not been chased on the point of schooling? What do we do? Do, do you send

00:10:12.860 your kids to a public school or to a private school if you can afford it? Do you do the H word? Do you

00:10:17.820 homeschool? Uh, you know, even these elementary steps, how do you get started?

00:10:23.760 Well, you'll have to read my book. I won't give away all the secrets, so they won't read the book.

00:10:27.920 No kidding. Um, so the, the C word chastity, um, it's possible. It's possible. Um, first of all,

00:10:36.620 it's possible to live a chaste life. Uh, it is true that it is the hardest time to do so,

00:10:42.700 uh, because we are bombarded with sexual imagery, with pornography. It's never been so easy to be

00:10:50.380 unchaste. As you said, uh, there is a hookup culture and, uh, but I give some ideas in the book,

00:10:57.180 how you should go about that. And if you haven't lived chastely, and unfortunately that is the

00:11:01.960 case for many people, because most people begin to have relationships in school and then go on

00:11:07.900 and have several and break them off and begin a new one and break them off and begin a new one

00:11:11.440 with every such step, your ability to form a lifelong happy marriage becomes smaller and smaller.

00:11:17.020 That's my theory, but it's not impossible. And of course, here we go back to my point. Number one,

00:11:22.420 through faith, through faith, through prayer, through an open communication, before you get

00:11:30.340 engaged, you should speak openly about that. And you should have the wish through your prayer life

00:11:35.400 to change your life in the sector of chastity, because you need to be chased in order to have

00:11:41.900 a lifelong fulfilled life. Uh, what I say is chastity is not no sex. Chastity is

00:11:48.760 sex where it belongs. And, uh, and it belongs to marriage very definitely, but it belongs to 0.65

00:11:55.080 marriage with an openness to life. It's all built in a beautiful way by God. Now you came,

00:11:59.920 you asked about the school thing. I'm in the wonderful situation that I, uh, experienced a public

00:12:05.620 school and, uh, we also homeschooled as over several times of our life. Um, so I know both of these

00:12:12.960 worlds, if you find a public school or a private school, if you can afford it, that brings your

00:12:19.180 children, the values that you have at home, um, good on you. Uh, I think it has become far more

00:12:25.300 difficult nowadays. And if there is a chapter in my book, which I call, uh, the Habsburgs as

00:12:31.060 homeschoolers, it's, it's fun because if you read, if you read, um, the, the, the classes,

00:12:36.880 the systems, the Habsburgs taught their children at home since the 17th, 16th, 17th century,

00:12:42.420 then you see that they're very close to what we call homeschooling today. And, uh, for, for my

00:12:47.700 children, the experience of homeschooling was wonderful. I never had children on such a high

00:12:52.200 level of education than when we homeschooled. And, um, yes, I've, I've got quite a few passages

00:12:58.840 on homeschooling in my book that may not be for everybody. And again, perhaps you're lucky enough,

00:13:04.640 but don't count on it. Don't make the terrible mistake of sending your children off to school

00:13:09.500 and handing over education to a public school, because in any case in today's society, you are

00:13:16.240 throwing them into a, into a pool where there are sharks. And, but again, if you have siblings at

00:13:22.560 home and a numerous family, you know that your peer group is at home, you know, who will have your back

00:13:28.340 and you can always compare what they tell you at school to what you hear at home.

00:13:33.040 I, I can attest to this because Edward, I haven't met all of your children, but I did

00:13:37.600 happen to run into your daughter on the streets of London one time. And, uh, we were chatting and

00:13:43.300 then I found out that she was your daughter and, uh, she was lovely, uh, obviously conversational,

00:13:50.900 well-adjusted, well-informed, all of these wonderful things. And, uh, I should have known

00:13:56.080 that she was homeschooled because it used to be the case that people would say, oh, the homeschoolers,

00:14:00.860 they're not going to be socialized. They're going to be weird. They're going to be awkward.

00:14:05.180 And if you send them to public school, then your children are going to be socialized. But you think,

00:14:10.520 why would anyone want to be normalized and socialized into our current society today?

00:14:17.180 Actually, you do, given our present society, you want to be the weird one because that's going to

00:14:21.480 make you normal by objective standards. Yes. Uh, so often I hear from, you know, cousins of mine,

00:14:30.460 friends of mine, a generation of people I went out with, they're good Catholics. The faith was

00:14:35.780 important for them and they're losing all their children. All their children are leaving the faith,

00:14:41.200 are not living a faithful life, are sleeping around, things like that. And, and you realize

00:14:46.360 it's a different world from when we went to school. It's really, really different. So you are in a very

00:14:52.700 strong responsibility, but again, having a numerous family automatically settles a numbers of things

00:14:59.760 for you. You don't have to explain everything because you learn through your skin that you're

00:15:04.680 not the center of the universe, that you're not entitled to the latest iPhone model, that the family

00:15:09.300 perhaps can afford only one computer screen and not seven or eight or nine. And all these things you

00:15:15.060 learn in a numerous family without that the parents even have to do something about it.

00:15:19.220 It's a beautiful point. There are many other beautiful lessons in the book. Truly,

00:15:22.840 as you listen now, type into Amazon or wherever you get your books,

00:15:27.240 Building a Wholesome Family in a Broken World by Archduke Edward Habsburg. Edward, I know

00:15:33.040 that, uh, you know, writing is sort of your side gig. Your day job is that you are an ambassador. I know

00:15:38.840 you have events to get to. So, uh, thank you. Sorry, I kept you a little bit late. Thank you for the

00:15:43.400 magnificent book. And I look forward to seeing you the next time that you're in America or I'm in

00:15:48.420 Hungary or Rome. Thank you. Thank you. God bless. Bye-bye. And thank you to all of you. I'm Michael

00:15:53.940 Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you tomorrow.

The Michael Knowles Show - December 01, 2024

Rules For Life： Michael Speaks with Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen

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