KETTELER
630
KETTELER
estant novelist, Ida von Hahn-Hahn. He reorganized
the large St. Hedwig Hospital, and for the first time
since the Reformation led a Corpus Christi procession
through the streets of Berlin.
In 1S49 the nomination of Professor Schmid as bishop by the canons of Mainz was rejected by Pius IX, to whom Schmid's views were justly an object of suspicion. The chapter after some opposition pro- posed three names to Pius IX, among them Ketteler's, and on 15 March, 1S5(), the pope named liim bishop of that see. The circumstances of his nomination and its acceptance by the grand -ducal Government of Hesse marked a defeat for the Josephist l:>ureaucracy which for twenty-five years had tyrannized over the Church in all the small states of the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine. Ketteler immediately inflicted two more defeats upon this bureaucracy: he re-opened in ISol the theological seminary of Mainz and thereljy freed his clergy from the influence of the theological faculty of Giessen, where the State had hitherto required Catholic seminarians to study; more- over he called a "concursus" for some vacant rec- tories without asking the permission of the State. Through liis institution of diocesan conferences and the introduction of numerous male and female congre- gations, Mainz be- came a model dio- cese. The Brothers of St. Joseph and the Sisters of Pro v- i d e n c e , two or- ders founded by Ketteler, were des- tined to a larger growth. As to the relations between the Church and the State in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, they rested chiefly on the good under- standing between Ketteler and Dal- wigk, the minister. Their written agreement (1S54) was not approved by Rome, which preferred that all the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine should act as a unit in their struggle against the legislation which the smaller German states were seeking to impose on all of them. The new agreement, which, after a vi.sit to Rome, Ket- teler negotiated with Dalwigk (1.S56), was sent to Rome by the bishop for approval, but was never re- turned. Until 1S70 religious peace was maintained in Hesse through the harmonious relations between the bishop and the minister.
Religious Conflicts in Baden. — Ketteler played a very active part in the difficulties which broke out be- tween the Baden government and Archljishop Vicari; he published a brochure defending the latter, and a visit of Ketteler's to Carlsruhe, in January, 1854, al- most brought about an understanding between Vicari and the Prince Regent of Baden. Bismarck, however, then Prussia's plenipotentiary at Frankfort, exercised such a strong influence over the Baden ministry that the attempted reconciliation failed. In 1865, when the opposition of the Catholics to the Baden school law causetl a severe persecution, Ketteler invoked the intervention of Emperor Francis Joseph, and in two pamphlets refuted the formula of Minister Lamey, according to which "law was the public conscience superior to private consciences." After Archliishop Vicari's death (ISfiS) it was again Ketteler who de- fended against Minister Jolly the electonil right of the Freiburg canons. At Ketteler's suggestion, on the oc-
WiLHELM Emmanuel von Kette
casion of the eleventh centenary of St. Boniface, were
inaugurated the conferences of German bishojis; since
then they have grown more frequent and are almost
annual since ISO!). In this way he was the chief pro-
moter of an institution which for the past forty years
has greatly aided the cohesion and strength of the
German episcopate. During 1864-66 liis name was
mentioned for the archbishoprics of Posei; or Cologne,
and Bismarck seemed for a moment to favour the
nomination.
Ketteler as a Social Reformer. — Ketteler thought that he was not exceeding his rights as a bishop when he spoke authoritatively on social questions. In 1S48 he believed that social reform had to begin with the interior regeneration of the soul. Later he was to enter more deeply into economical problems. When, about 1863, the Liberal Schulze-Dehtzsch and the So- cialist Lassalle made forcilile appeals to the German workingmen, Ketteler studied their doctrines and even consulted Lassalle in an anonymous letter on a scheme of founding five small co-operative associations of workingmen.
The Labour Question and Christianity. — In a book pubhshed in 1864, "The Labour Question and Chris- tianity", he adopted Lassalle's criticism of the modern treatment of labour, and admitteil the reality of an insurmountable law. In opposition to Schulze-De- litzsch he pointed out the futility of the remedies pro- posed by the Liberals, he advocated labour associa- tions, and even accepted the idea of co-operative unions to be established, not as Lassalle wished, by state subvention, but by generous aid from Christian capitalists. In a Socialistic meeting at Rondsdorf, 23 May, 1864, Lassalle paid homage to Ketteler's book. On his side, Ketteler, whom three Catholic workmen had asked in 1866 if they could conscientiously join the " workingmen's association" founded by Las- salle, was disposed to dissuade them from so doing, owing to the anti-religious spirit of Lassalle's succes- sors; nevertheless in his reply he duly acknowledged Lassalle's "respectful recognition of the depth and truth of Christianity". At this time he counted par- ticularly upon the initiative of Christian charity for the organization of productive co-operative associations destinetl to restore social justice on a more equal scale. In 1869 he went still further: in a sermon preached near Offenbach, 25 July of that j'ear, he particularized certain urgent reforms (increase of wages, shorter hours of labour, prohibition of child-labour in fac- tories, prohibition of women's and young girls' labour) ; these claims, he thought, should be presented to the public authorities. In Sept., 1869, at the Fulda con- ference of the German bishops, he showed how neces- sary for the removal of economic evils was the intervention of the Church in the name of faith, morals, and charity. He also made clear the right of workingmen to legal protection and urged that in every diocese some priests should be selected to make a study of economic questions. This Fulda iliseourse of Ketteler brought the Church of Germany into closer relations with the new social activity; on the other hand, his programme for protection of labour, taken up again in 1873 in his pamphlet on "Catholics in the German Empire", long served the German Centre as a basis for their social claims.
Doctrinal Controversies; The Vatican Council. — Though not professionally a theologian, Ketteler made his influence felt in the various doctrinal controversies of his time. In his "Liberty, .\uthority,and Chinch" (1862) he took a stand on the question of Lilicralisni, and set forth the Christian attitude towards the vari- ous meanings of the word lihrriy. Tlic theological "school" which Ketteler established in his seminary at Mainz, and wliose cliief representatives w<ti' Mou- fang and Ileinrieli. was noted for its adherence to Scholastic theology and its hostility to the anti-Roman tendencies of "Germanism" and "German Science"
