KETTELER, WILHELM EMANUEL von. – Bishop of Mainz, initiator and supporter of the ideological and practical movement of German Catholic social teaching, b. at Harkotten (Westphalia) on 25 Dec. 1811, d. at Burghausen (Upper Bavaria) on 13 July 1877. He studied theology in Munich and was ordained priest in 1844. As chaplain in Beckum and later parish priest in Hopsten, he came into close contact with and personally assisted the sick and the poor, thereby gaining firsthand knowledge of the social miseries of his time. During these years, Germany was undergoing the early stages of the industrial revolution, with its resulting major transformations in the economic and social structure that were to lead to the formation of the proletariat: the separation of labour from capital, the disintegration of family bonds, and the abuses of unchecked nascent capitalism.
To this painful and chaotic reality the young priest initially approached with the spirit and style of Christian charity, envisaging a work of spiritual renewal.
KETTELER, WILHELM EMANUEL von – Portrait.
Yet by 1848 K. had already recognized the economic content of the social question and, through speeches and writings, began an ardent campaign for a social action of the Catholic Church. At the same time, K. laid the foundations for the organization of artisan workers, the first victims of industrial transformation, into associations of a religious and professional character (Haudcker gesellen), from which there later developed the action of Catholic cooperation and that of the German Catholic trade union movement. From 1848 to 1863 there was a period of almost complete silence from K. regarding the social problem. Appointed Bishop of Mainz in 1850, he founded the seminary there (1851), which soon became one of the foremost in Germany, and he tirelessly promoted Catholic organizations of a religious and educational nature. In 1863, with the authority of his episcopal office, he first addressed the true working-class question in depth, taking a firm stand both against liberalism and economic-political individualism and against excessive state intervention. The clash between various positions enabled him to clarify his thought: Catholics should in every way promote the creation of production, consumption, and credit cooperatives, financed by private capitalists. Christian spirit of brotherhood and cooperation, by vitalizing such initiatives, would provide the moral forces capable of consolidating the cooperatives and rendering them effective instruments for substantially overcoming, and not merely formally, the capitalist system. His ideas, later set forth in a volume, did not find concrete practical application, but it was important for the subsequent development of German Catholic social teaching that K. had shown how to resolve the working-class question, which is a moral question, it is necessary to descend also to the economic level and strengthen the economic and social position of the worker, giving him greater security for the future. Concerned with the need to educate Catholics, K. in every way fostered the interest of the Catholic press in social and economic problems. Under his direct impetus there arose in Germany the Christlich-sozialen Blätter (1868), and he organized in 1869 the Catholic Congress of Düsseldorf and the Conference of Fulda, which drew the attention of the German episcopate to the issue.
K. knew how to interpret and evaluate promptly every change in the economic and social environment of his time and adapt to it the orientations of Catholicism. The economic crisis of 1857 and the following years, which posed the social question in more drastic terms; the growing prevalence of Marxist ideology within German Social Democracy; the transition from the old police state to a more prudent interventionism on the part of the Prussian state first, and then of the new German Empire, led to an evolution in K.’s thought and in the directives of his practical action. From 1865 onwards he admitted a broader state intervention in social problems and subsequently increasingly emphasized the need for a coherent and organic social policy of the state, aimed less at overcoming the capitalist system than at mitigating its excesses.
As a deputy in the German Parliament from 1873, he distinguished himself among the representatives of the Centre Party with his speeches, also presenting a comprehensive project for corporatist-based social legislation, whose foundation was the overcoming, within the framework of professional morality—encompassed by Catholic morality—of class struggle, in favour of the principle of collaboration among the various factors of production, for the sake of the common good. This project, lacking the support of the Centre Party majority, was not accepted. Together with other Catholic deputies, K. played an important part in the struggle against the *Kulturkampf*; the serious political-ecclesiastical conflicts that ensued slowed his activity towards the end of his life.
Yet his fundamental idea was by then widely disseminated and accepted even outside Catholic circles: K. had indeed succeeded in demonstrating that the social question cannot be resolved by rational means alone and that the proletariat is not characterized solely by a scarcity of economic goods; he maintained that the capitalist system cannot be overcome unless its spirit is changed through a slow and profound educational effort. By drawing attention to the role of the state in this education, K. laid the foundations for the theoretical orientation and practical activity of German Catholic social policy. He can therefore be considered a precursor, since he foresaw, half a century before this principle became commonplace, the need for social legislation not based solely on humanitarian motives or on “reason of state,” but as a consequence of a moral exigency, in conformity with the ethical nature of human society. By grounding his critique of capitalism on the natural right of the individual to existence, freedom, and the development of his personality, K. also laid the theoretical foundations for the modern Christian solution and, indirectly, for a substantial critique of collectivism and economic liberalism.
Principal works: *Libertà, autorità e Chiesa* (Parma 1864); *Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christentum* (Mainz 1844); *Deutschland nach dem Krieg von 1866* (ibid. 1867); *Das Allgem. Konzil und seine Bedeutung für unsere Zeit* (ibid. 1869); *Liberalismus, Sozialismus und Christentum* (ibid. 1971); *Die Katholiken im deutschen Reich* (ibid. 1873); *Predigten und Briefe*, ed. J. M. Raich (ibid. 1878).