Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
14 March 1905
Prince Maximilian of Saxony, who is a Roman catholic priest and professor
of theology at the famous Roman catholic University in Friburg in
Switzerland, is at Rome and almost daily at the Vatican. Although he is
closely related to King Victor Emmanuel, whose grandmother, the old
Duchess of Genoa, is a sister of the late King George of Saxony, he has
not called upon his cousins at the Quirinal nor given any sign of life
there. He is understood to be at Rome for the purpose of invoking the
intervention of the Pope in the scandal, by annulling the marriage which
still exists between the ex-crown princess and King Frederick Augustus of
Saxony, in the eyes of the Roman Catholic church, which does not recognize
their divorce. But it is difficult to see on what canonical crounds the
Vatican can possibly decree the dissolution of the marriage, no matter how
anxious they might be to comply with the wishes of Prince Maximilian of
Saxony, and it is doubtful whether the Pope will see his way to do
anything whatsoever in the matter.
This prince, by the by, entered holy orders as the result, it is said, of
an unfortunate affaire de coeur, having up to that time been a brilliant
cavalry officer. He has persistently declined all ecclesiastical honors,
bishoprics, archbishoprics, and even the hat of a cardinal having been
already offered to him. He spent the first two years of his ministry doing
missionary work in the Whitechapel slums of London. Afterward, for a short
time, he acted as mere curate of a church in Nuremburg, and then, finding
that he could not escape in Germeny the honors due to his rank as a prince
of the blood, sought and obtained the professorship of theology at
Friburg, in the Swiss republic, where his royalty goes for nothing.
