Wilhelm Emmanuel Freiherr von Ketteler

Freiherr Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler (25 December 181113 July 1877) was a German theologian and politician who served as Bishop of Mainz. His social teachings became influential during the papacy of Leo XIII and his encyclical Rerum novarum.

Early life and ordination Ketteler was born in Münster in Westphalia into the Ketteler noble family. In 1828, he finished matura in Brig, Switzerland. He studied theology at Göttingen, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Munich, and was ordained as a priest in 1844. He dedicated much of his life to maintaining the freedom of the Church from the control of the State, which often brought him into conflict with political powers.

Bishophood During the 1848 Revolutions, Ketteler was elected as a deputy for the District of Tecklenburg and Warendorf to the Frankfurt National Assembly. During this time, he became noted for his foresight, energy, and eloquence. He established a reputation for his decisiveness, rather than his scholarliness. Ketteler was friends with Julie von Massow, a Lutheran woman from Prussian nobility, who established one of these prayer societies.

Ketteler was opposed the dogma of papal infallibility on the ground that it was being promulgated at an inappropriate time. After the dogma was defined in 1870, he submitted to the decrees.

In 1858, Ketteler issued a pamphlet on the rights of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, drawing a hard line between the Church and the State. In 1863 he adopted Ferdinand Lassalle's views, and published his Die Arbeitfrage und das Christenthum. He was a vocal opponent of the State in the Kulturkampf provoked by Prince Otto von Bismarck after the publication of the Vatican decrees, and was largely instrumental in compelling von Bismark to retract the pledge he had given to never "go to Canossa." In 1874, Ketteler forbade his clergy from celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan, and declared the Rhine to be a "Catholic river."