Rules For Lifeļ¼ Michael Speaks with Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen
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Summary
Archduke Edward Habsburg joins me to talk about his new book, Building a Wholesome Family in a Broken World: How to Find a Good Husband and a Good Wife. He also talks about how to balance a career, a family, and a life in general.
Transcript
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31st, 2025. TD. Ready for you. It is Theology Thursday and I am so pleased to be joined by my
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friend, the Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See and the Sovereign Order of Malta, Archduke Edward
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Habsburg. Edward, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me on the show. Edward, your first
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book, you came on to discuss The Habsburg Way. I thought it was an absolutely marvelous book. I have
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multiple copies of it in my home library. That way I can offer it to people. If they come by,
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they can get a little bit of advice. And it was largely about your family, the history of the
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Habsburgs, and how the Habsburgs were able to become an illustrious family and a flourishing family
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and a little bit of advice that maybe people might be able to glean today. Your new book,
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Building a Wholesome Family in a Broken World, which everyone should stop what they're doing,
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pull over, whatever you're doing, go order it right now. It is superb, building a wholesome
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family in a broken world. It's a little bit more direct. It's a little less, there's some family
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biography in there too, autobiography in there too, but it is much blunter. It is, hey, guy,
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you know, it's reaching out, shaking people by the shoulders and saying, this is how you do it.
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You're confused. You don't know what to do. It's a confusing time. Here is how you build a family.
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Because, as you point out, the family is the little society. The family is the fundamental
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unit of politics. So, Edward, what's your advice?
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Well, first of all, in scriptwriting, I was a scriptwriter for a while. They say, write what you
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know. So, I thought I'd write about what I know and what I knew for the last about 30 years was
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family, lots of children, and a happy, fulfilling marriage. And then I look around and I see that
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this is not what happens everywhere. It's not exactly the normal way nowadays. Most people
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have changing relationships, don't have children, don't even find a good spouse, and go about it all
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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,
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peppered with Habsburg stories from the centuries. But it's mostly my experiences in the family and
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how to go about it, how to find a good spouse. I have a bucket list, a checklist, how to check off
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that girl or that guy before you decide to get engaged. It's a breezy little read. I think you
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can read it rather fast. And I'm repeating things that were absolutely known to everybody for the
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last 2,000, nay, 10,000 years, but have suddenly fallen out of favor somewhere after the 60s.
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So, I'm afraid Habsburg has to step up and talk about it.
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You mentioned that you're a former scriptwriter. And I think, I don't know my history perfectly,
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I think you might be the only Habsburg that's ever written a zombie movie. Is that right?
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I suppose I am. I suppose I am. Unfortunately, it was never produced. But if you have half an hour,
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Well, that's very good. Maybe we can get to that after the slightly more urgent matter of
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how people find a spouse, have a good family. People write into my show all the time. It might
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be the most frequent question I get. How do I date? How do I meet somebody? They say,
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I'm on the dating apps, and I'm not doing well on the dating apps on my phone, or I don't want
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to be on the dating apps. So, how do I meet a spouse? How do I know if my spouse is the right
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one? How do I balance work and personal life? When do I know if I'm ready to have children?
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How many children should I have? Should I date? Should I go have a career before? So,
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amid all that confusion with which you're certainly familiar, at least from a distance,
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Well, I tell them, go about it the old-fashioned way.
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I tell them, teach your children before they even enter the dating market that they shouldn't go
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for one relationship after the other, and also intimate relationships, but to put all your money
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on red. Make one big shot for a lifelong, happy, fulfilling marriage. And in order to do that,
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you have to set a few stops before you even get closer, engage to a potential spouse. And you have
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to really use your brain. You have to use your brain. And in my book, I have a series of five
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points that you, but I have to stop here. Most people tell me, I don't even know where to find
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someone who might be a potential spouse, as you said, on my dating apps. And it's right,
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if you want to have a long, fulfilling, happy marriage, you're looking for someone very special,
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and you probably won't find him in the pub around the corner or on some frivolous dating app. But
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what you're shooting for is someone who shares your values, who shares your faith, who shares your
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idea of family, who is chaste. I'm using the word chastity quite a lot. You know the joke,
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two friends meet, and one of them says, I've got exciting news for you. I made a vow of chastity,
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obedience, and poverty. And the other one says, ah, you're getting married. So what I'm saying is,
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you should look for someone really special. And that someone really special is not
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in the first meaning, someone hot and attractive, but someone you can spend an entire life with.
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And so first, first criterion, you have to check whether the other person shares your faith. I'm
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not talking about having been baptized in the Catholic faith. I'm talking about God is a center
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of my life. My prayer life is a center of my life. That's the kind of person you're looking for.
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Um, the second, because without faith, I have no clue how somebody would, would master all the
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complicated, difficult things that happened during a long life of marriage with children.
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Um, so faith, the second point is family. You have to understand whether the other person
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is ready to have a big family. And that's the core message of my book is in my first book,
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I wrote, get married and have lots of children. I think that is the greatest healing power for our
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society. For all the complications we have in our dating life. We need families with lots of children
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just so that people can for once in their life encounter a numerous family. You only meet families
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with one to two and a half maximum children in publicity, in movies, in series, wherever.
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Um, you should meet families with five, six, seven children. The joy of being with such a family is
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so great. It was that experience for me as a child that let me believe I want to have a big family one day.
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So, but the other thing is that if you have lots of children, it's the greatest gift the spouses can
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give each other. It's the greatest gift you can give to the children. A big family will get you
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strength for your life. You learn all the virtues that you need for life just by being a big family
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and it will heal society. Um, I profoundly believe that a society built on the bricks of numerous family
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is a more just, more merciful, more compassionate society. And, uh, so yeah, so you, you want to check
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whether the other person is ready for a big family and a big family means sacrifices. It means you might
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not be able to have an apartment in the swank part of town. It means you might not have that cool job
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that you want because you have to live somewhere where you can afford to have a big family. It also means
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very old fashioned, very reactionary. That is probably a good idea that at least one of the parents,
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ideally the mother remains at home, at least when the children are small. Now people immediately
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say impossible, impossible, impossible. You can't even afford the family if you, if even one of the
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parents stays at home. I don't think that's true. We live in the most prosperous and secure society ever
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and we can't afford children. I can't believe it. A great, that's a great point. Uh, you know,
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sure there is a disparity of wealth. There, there are people who have zillions of dollars and others
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who, you know, they worry about their bills, but by historical standards, basically everyone today
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is extraordinarily rich. So if people a hundred or 50 or 40 years ago were able to have five, six,
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seven children, why can't you, you say in the book that, uh, uh, this is the first way to instill
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family values in the, in the kids is just to have a large family there. You're beginning with the
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family value from the moment that your kids really become conscious. Uh, I think that's such a beautiful
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idea, especially the idea of the family as the little society, as the microcosm of, of all of
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society. Uh, so the chastity is going to be hard for people because there's a hookup culture and
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everybody sleeps around, you know, from the age of like 13 or something. I don't know, you know,
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it's, it gets younger and younger specifically with a public school. So how do you deal with
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chastity or people who have not been chased on the point of schooling? What do we do? Do, do you send
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your kids to a public school or to a private school if you can afford it? Do you do the H word? Do you
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homeschool? Uh, you know, even these elementary steps, how do you get started?
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Well, you'll have to read my book. I won't give away all the secrets, so they won't read the book.
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No kidding. Um, so the, the C word chastity, um, it's possible. It's possible. Um, first of all,
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it's possible to live a chaste life. Uh, it is true that it is the hardest time to do so,
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uh, because we are bombarded with sexual imagery, with pornography. It's never been so easy to be
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unchaste. As you said, uh, there is a hookup culture and, uh, but I give some ideas in the book,
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how you should go about that. And if you haven't lived chastely, and unfortunately that is the
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case for many people, because most people begin to have relationships in school and then go on
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and have several and break them off and begin a new one and break them off and begin a new one
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with every such step, your ability to form a lifelong happy marriage becomes smaller and smaller.
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That's my theory, but it's not impossible. And of course, here we go back to my point. Number one,
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through faith, through faith, through prayer, through an open communication, before you get
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engaged, you should speak openly about that. And you should have the wish through your prayer life
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to change your life in the sector of chastity, because you need to be chased in order to have
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a lifelong fulfilled life. Uh, what I say is chastity is not no sex. Chastity is
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sex where it belongs. And, uh, and it belongs to marriage very definitely, but it belongs to
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marriage with an openness to life. It's all built in a beautiful way by God. Now you came,
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you asked about the school thing. I'm in the wonderful situation that I, uh, experienced a public
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school and, uh, we also homeschooled as over several times of our life. Um, so I know both of these
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worlds, if you find a public school or a private school, if you can afford it, that brings your
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children, the values that you have at home, um, good on you. Uh, I think it has become far more
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difficult nowadays. And if there is a chapter in my book, which I call, uh, the Habsburgs as
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homeschoolers, it's, it's fun because if you read, if you read, um, the, the, the classes,
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the systems, the Habsburgs taught their children at home since the 17th, 16th, 17th century,
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then you see that they're very close to what we call homeschooling today. And, uh, for, for my
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children, the experience of homeschooling was wonderful. I never had children on such a high
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level of education than when we homeschooled. And, um, yes, I've, I've got quite a few passages
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on homeschooling in my book that may not be for everybody. And again, perhaps you're lucky enough,
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but don't count on it. Don't make the terrible mistake of sending your children off to school
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and handing over education to a public school, because in any case in today's society, you are
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throwing them into a, into a pool where there are sharks. And, but again, if you have siblings at
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home and a numerous family, you know that your peer group is at home, you know, who will have your back
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and you can always compare what they tell you at school to what you hear at home.
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I, I can attest to this because Edward, I haven't met all of your children, but I did
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happen to run into your daughter on the streets of London one time. And, uh, we were chatting and
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then I found out that she was your daughter and, uh, she was lovely, uh, obviously conversational,
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well-adjusted, well-informed, all of these wonderful things. And, uh, I should have known
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that she was homeschooled because it used to be the case that people would say, oh, the homeschoolers,
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they're not going to be socialized. They're going to be weird. They're going to be awkward.
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And if you send them to public school, then your children are going to be socialized. But you think,
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why would anyone want to be normalized and socialized into our current society today?
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Actually, you do, given our present society, you want to be the weird one because that's going to
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make you normal by objective standards. Yes. Uh, so often I hear from, you know, cousins of mine,
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friends of mine, a generation of people I went out with, they're good Catholics. The faith was
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important for them and they're losing all their children. All their children are leaving the faith,
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are not living a faithful life, are sleeping around, things like that. And, and you realize
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it's a different world from when we went to school. It's really, really different. So you are in a very
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strong responsibility, but again, having a numerous family automatically settles a numbers of things
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for you. You don't have to explain everything because you learn through your skin that you're
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not the center of the universe, that you're not entitled to the latest iPhone model, that the family
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perhaps can afford only one computer screen and not seven or eight or nine. And all these things you
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learn in a numerous family without that the parents even have to do something about it.
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It's a beautiful point. There are many other beautiful lessons in the book. Truly,
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as you listen now, type into Amazon or wherever you get your books,
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Building a Wholesome Family in a Broken World by Archduke Edward Habsburg. Edward, I know
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that, uh, you know, writing is sort of your side gig. Your day job is that you are an ambassador. I know
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you have events to get to. So, uh, thank you. Sorry, I kept you a little bit late. Thank you for the
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magnificent book. And I look forward to seeing you the next time that you're in America or I'm in
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Hungary or Rome. Thank you. Thank you. God bless. Bye-bye. And thank you to all of you. I'm Michael
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Knowles. This is The Michael Knowles Show. See you tomorrow.