“He was deeply and firmly convinced that political and social problems are so inseparably connected with religious questions that any one aiming at defending religion from a high stand-point and in a comprehensive manner cannot indifferently pass by these problems.”
A newspaper generally opposed to his political views, the Catholic Voice (or “Opinion”),[[164]] speaks in the same sense:
“One of the most noteworthy traits in the life and works of Bishop Ketteler is the lively interest which he took, by deed, word, and writing, in the social question. It is precisely in this direction that most misunderstandings take place. But we would remind the public that the attitude of the bishop towards this problem was wholly shaped by his Catholic principles and his priestly duties. Nothing was further from his mind than the wish to use the needs of the laborer as a basis for political agitation, or to carry out any chimerical theories of a general millennium. He took a part in the labor question, because he saw in working-men the victims of so-called liberal lawgivers, and because he found it his duty as a pastor to care for the poor. These high and noble motives were not always appreciated, but working-men themselves have repeatedly testified their confidence in him, and after his death were published many gratifying tributes from the same source.”
The sense in which he took part in this question is again impressed on the German public by means of the article from which we have quoted before—namely, that it was determined by personal experience and a sensitive consciousness of his duties as a priest.
“What he wrote and did concerning this subject proceeded not from mere theoretical interest, still less from political reasons, but from Christian love and brotherly feeling towards the people, especially the poorer classes, and from the ardent wish to further their eternal and temporal welfare, as well as to save them, together with the whole of society, from the terrible chaos towards which we are being hurled, if the old maxims and practice of Christian charity and justice do not prevail against the principles of modern liberalism and pseudo-conservatism.”
In his political prominence, and his fearless handling of questions often, under specious pretexts, withdrawn from the allowed limits of clerical oratory, Ketteler seems to invite a comparison with Dupanloup, the Bishop of Orleans, who, having fought in the earlier struggle for freedom of education in France, has lived to take part in a struggle more vital and less local—that of the whole field of Christian doctrine in arms against systematized revolution. Occasion naturally moulds the men it needs; the material of such characters is always present, but in the church, as in the world, “mute, inglorious Miltons” and “village Hampdens” die and leave no mark. This explains the rush of talent to the rescue of every cause seriously imperilled by its successful adversaries; among others the cause of the church, under whatsoever persecution it may chance to suffer. This also explains the present superiority, as a body, of the German episcopate. In the first quarter of this century the reconstruction of society in France, and the reorganization of the church on a basis less majestic but more dignified than that of the ancien régime, brought about the same bristling of great gifts greatly used around the threatened liberties of the church. In Poland, during the two insurrections which this century has witnessed, heroes rose up naturally wherever there was a priest or a bishop; in the late French war, and its sequel, the Commune, the martyrdoms and Christian stoicism of 1793 were repeated and nearly surpassed, while the present more tedious, less brilliant struggle of the church in Germany has called forth men of iron will and fathomless patience to resist, legally and passively, an active, goading injustice. In countries where there is no need for it there is less of this public display of unusual powers; bishops who might be statesmen remain simply administrators, priests who might be heroes remain obscure pastors; in literature it is research, learning, theology which take up their leisure time, not public speaking or political writing; the silent, healthful life of the church goes on, without struggle and hindrance, and work is done indeed, but it seldom becomes known beyond a small local circle. And even this happens only under the shadow of suppressed hostility to the church, such as there exists at present in almost every country; for there have been times when, splendid as the outward position of the church has been, or seemingly unfettered her organization, there was at the core a spiritual drowsiness which was far from honorable. Such a period came before the first French Revolution; another earlier, before the German Reformation; another later, before Catholic Emancipation in England; and another before the late Prussian church laws in Germany. There was either security or sovereignty; no shade of persecution; at most a polished indifference or a scornful toleration, and hence no revival, no earnest, quick-pulsing life.
We have omitted to mention one of Bishop Ketteler’s most important undertakings—that of the theological institute in Mayence, to replace the education given to the clergy at the local university of Hesse, Giesen. The grand-duke heartily approved of the plan of restoring to the episcopal seminary the whole training of the diocesan clergy, instead of the taking on, as a secondary branch, of a chair of theology to Giesen; and the bishop was enabled to carry out his plans in this matter, and to leave behind him a body of priests, zealous, loyal, whole-hearted, and imbued with his own spirit.
Ketteler was in every sense a great man, and no less a man of his age. He accepted everything as it legitimately stands, with no hankerings after the old order of things, no political, or rather romantic, longings after forced revivals of bygone conditions; but he took his stand firmly on the principle that the church has her own appointed and immutable place in every successive system, and ought to stand by her claim to this place. This is the basis whence every member of her army should in these days fight her battles, and, taking up the new weapons, make them his own. Ketteler has shown them the way.