KETTELER, WILHELM EMMANUEL VON. - Bishop of Mainz, initiator and supporter of the ideological and practical movement of German social Catholicism, b. at Harkotten (Westphalia) on 25 Dec. 1811, d. at Burghausen (Upper Bavaria) on 13 July 1877. He studied theology at Munich and was ordained a priest in 1844. As a chaplain at Beckum and then as parish priest at Hopsten, he had the opportunity, by spreading the Society of St. Vincent and personally assisting the sick and the poor, to come close to and learn about the social miseries of his time. In those years the industrial revolution was beginning in Germany, with the consequent great transformations of the economic and social structure that were to lead to the formation of the proletariat: separation of labor from capital, disintegration of the family bond, abuses of the nascent and unchecked capitalism.
To this painful and chaotic reality the young priest first drew near with the spirit and style of Christian charity, thinking of a work of spiritual renewal.
But already in 1848 K. had recognized the economic content of the social question and with speeches and writings began an ardent propaganda 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 the industrial transformation, into associations of a religious and professional character (Handverhegesellen), from which the action of cooperation and that of German Catholic trade unionism would later develop. From 1848 to 1863 there is a period of almost absolute silence on K.'s part regarding the social problem. Appointed bishop of Mainz in 1850, he founded there the seminary (1851), which would soon become one of the foremost in Germany, and he was a tireless promoter of Catholic organizations of a religious and educational character. In 1863, with his authority as bishop, he tackled for the first time in depth the true and proper workers' question, taking a decisive position both against liberalism and economic-political individualism and against excessive state intervention. The contrast between the various theses gave him the opportunity to clarify his thought: Catholics must favor in every way the creation of production, consumer and credit cooperatives, financed by private capitalists. The Christian spirit of brotherhood and cooperation, by quickening the initiative, would have provided the moral forces capable of consolidating the cooperatives and making them effective instruments for a substantial, and not merely formal, overcoming of the capitalist system. His ideas, later set out in a volume, did not have a concrete practical application, but it was important, for the subsequent development of German social Catholicism, that K. had brought to light how, in order to solve the workers' question, which is a moral question, it is also necessary to descend onto the economic terrain 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. favored in every way the interest of the Catholic press in social and economic problems. Through his direct impulse the Christlich-sozialen Blätter (1868) were born in Germany, and by him were organized in 1869 the Catholic Congress of Düsseldorf and the Conference of Fulda, which drew the attention of the German episcopate to the subject.
K. knew how to interpret and assess promptly every change in the economic and social environment of his time and to adapt the orientations of Catholicism to it. The economic crisis of 1857 and of the following years, which set out the terms of the question more drastically; the growing prevalence of Marxist ideology within German social democracy; the overcoming of the old police state in favor of a more prudent interventionism on the part of the Prussian State first, and of the new German Empire afterward, led to an evolution in K.'s thought and in his directives for practical action. From 1865 onward he admitted a broader state intervention in social problems and subsequently he increasingly emphasized the need for a coherent and organic social policy of the State, aimed, more than at overcoming the capitalist system, at mitigating its excesses.
A deputy in the German Parliament from 1873, he distinguished himself among the representatives of the Center parties for his speeches, also presenting a complete project of social legislation on a corporative basis, whose foundation was the overcoming, within the sphere of professional morality, framed within Catholic morality, of the class struggle, in favor of the principle of collaboration of the various factors of production, for the requirements of the common good. This project, which lacked the support of the Center majority, was not accepted. With other Catholic deputies K. played an important part in the struggle against the "Kulturkampf"; the grave political and ecclesiastical conflicts that resulted from it slowed down, toward the end of his life, his activity.
His fundamental idea, however, was by then widespread and accepted even in non-Catholic circles: K. had in fact succeeded in demonstrating that the social question cannot be solved by rational means alone and that the proletariat is not characterized only by the scarcity of economic goods; he maintained that the capitalist system is not overcome except by changing its spirit through a slow and profound educational action. By drawing attention back to the function of the State in this education, K. laid the foundations of the theoretical orientation and of the practical activity of German Catholic social policy. He can therefore be considered a precursor, because he glimpsed, half a century before this principle became common knowledge, the necessity of a social legislation not framed solely on humanitarian motives or on "reason of State," but as the consequence of a moral requirement, in conformity with the ethical nature of human society. By basing the critique of capitalism on the notion of the individual's natural right to existence, to freedom and to the development of his own personality, K. also laid the foundations of the theoretical basis of the modern Christian solution and, indirectly, those for a substantial critique of economic collectivism and 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. 1871); Die Katholiken im deutschen Reich (ibid. 1873); Predigten und Briefe, edited by J. M. Raich (ibid. 1878).
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Francesca Duchini