Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/711

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KEVIN


G31


KEYS


represented by Dollinger and the Munich School. The former urged with mucli tenacity the theological seminaries, as preferable to the theological faculties of the universities, for the education of the Catholic clergy, and earnestly strove, since 18(32, for the estab- lishment of that free Catholic university in Germany which is yet a desideratum. Despite this firm atti- tude, Kettelor had great intellectual charity, and could understand theological views that differed some- what from his own, and when necessary could be their advocate ; it was doubtless to him that Kuhn of Tiibin- gen was indebted for escaping condemnation at Rome.

On the eve of the Vatican Council, Ketteler was not very favourably inclined towards the dogmatic defini- tion of papal infallibility: " In our time it is not oppor- tune to increase the number of dogmas", he wrote to Bi-shop Dupanloup. Enemy as he was of political ab- solutism and centralization, he feared that a declara- tion of papal infallibility would result in religious absolutism and centralization. He submitted to the episcopal assembly at Fulda (1 Sept., 1S69) a series of observations which he had asked from Francis Bren- tano, professor at Wurzburg, and in which the defini- tion of papal infallibility was treated as inopportune; at the same time he rough-drafted the letter in which this assenilily urged all Christians to submit to the future council. Though belonging to the minority in the council, he protested more than once against the "Roman Letters" of Dollinger, published at Munich under the pseudonym of "Quirinus". He circulated in the council a pamphlet of the Jesuit Quarella, which in some respects seemed to militate against the doc- trine of infallibility, but he did not personally accept all the theories of this work. It was he who suggested the petition of May, 1.870, in which a number of bishops demanded that the eleven chapters of the "Schema" on the Church be taken up before entering on the tliscussion of infallibility. On 23 May he de- clared in a plenary meeting that he had always be- lieved in papal infallibility, but he asked whether the theological proofs put forward sufficed to ju.stify its dogmatic definition. He was not present at the final vote and left Rome after a written declaration that he submitted beforehand to the decision of the council. In September, 1870, he signed, with other German bishops, the Fulda declaration in favour of the newly defined dogma.

Ketteler and German Unity. — The political changes that now took place in Germany, and the indirect effect they might have upon Catholic interests, were a source of much anxiety to him. When Austria's de- feat at Sadowa (1866) filled the Catholics of Germany with consternation, and proved that their dream of an Austrian Germany was quite over, Ketteler tried to revive their courage in his " Germany after the War of 1866". He advi-sed them to meet halfway the coming changes, and to let no one surpass them in their love of the German Fatherland. On the other hand, he be- sought Prussia not to be misled by those who would make her an instrument of Protestantism or of certain philosophical theories, and urged the respect of all existing political and social autonomies.

After the establishment of German unity (1870-71), Ketteler's chief concern was to obtain for German Catholics in the new empire such liberties and guaran- tees as the Constitution granted them in Prussia. This much he demanded in a letter to Bismarck (1 Oct., 1870), also during a visit he paid him in the spring of 1871, and in a speech in the Reichstag (15 April, 1N71), where he served as a deputy from the Baden constituency of Waldiirn-Tauberbischofsheun. The National Liberal party, on the contrary, urged the new empire towards religious persecution. Ketteler conferred once more with Bismarck, on 16 March, 1871, again pleaded with him for the Catholics, and then, on 14 March, 1872. resigned his seat in the Ger- man Parliament. He kept in touch, however, with


religious politics, and wrote important pamphlets against the Prussian Kulturkampf, also against similar measures which the National Liberals, yet in- fluential with Dahvigk's successors, were inaugurating in Hesse. During the Kulturkampf his share in the Fulda episcopal conferences was often predomi- nant. He and Archbishop Melchers of Cologne were potent in the decision passed in 1873 urging the bish- ops to oppose the May Laws by absolute passive re- sistance, antl, on the other hand, advocating a con- ciliatory attitude towards the Prussian law on the ad- ministration of church propertj-. In 1873 his views on the rights of Christianity and of a bishop led him to enter the broader political field in his book on "The Catholics in the German Empire" in which he drew up a platform for the Centre Party and ofTered wise direc- tion to the State. He contrasted frequently the Liberalism of 1848, sincerely respectful of religious belief, with the " National Liberalism" of Bismarckian Germany, the old German idea of local autonomy with the idea of centralization borrowed from France. He hated in Bismarckian Germany the spread of political absolutism quite as in modern indu.strialism he hated the development of capitalist absolutism. The s|)irit of initiative which chai-acterized this bisho)) is well set forth in a letter written 6 IMay, 1870, to Haffner, future Bishop of Mainz: "I am heart and soul at- tached to the new forms which in days to come the old Christian truths will create for all human relations." Of him Windthorst said, in 1890: "We venerate him unanimously as the doctor and leading champion of Catholic social aspirations."

R.4ICH. Brie/e von und an Ketteler (.Mainz. 1S79); Pfulf, Bischof Ketteler (Ibid., 1899), a three volume work of fiist- class importance; Idem, in Stimmen aus Maria Loach (1908), 550-561. an account of Ketteler's ideas on the school question and on ecclesiastical reforms; De Girard, Ketteler et la question ouvriire (Berne. 1896); Decurtins. preface to (Euircs choisies de Mgr de Ketteler (Bale. 1892) ; Goyau, VAllemagne religieuse: le cathoUcisme. 1800-1870, II-IV (Paris, 1905-1909); Idem. Ketteler (Paris. 1907), treats of the principal social ideas of Ketteler. A complete bibliography of Ketteler's works is given at the end of the third volume of Pfulf.

Georges Goyau.

Kevin, Saint. See Coemgen, Saint.

Keyes, Erasmus Darwin, soldier, convert, b. at Brimfield, Massachusetts, U. S. A., 29 May, 1810; d. at Nice, France, 14 October, 1895. His father, Justus, was a prominent physician and surgeon. Receiving an appointment to the West Point ^Iilitary Academy, j'oung Keyes graduated there in 1832 and was com- missioned a lieutenant in the Third Artillery. After service in the South during the Nulhfication troubles, 1832-33, he was military aide to General Scott, with the rank of captain (1837—41), on duty connected with the Indian conflicts. From 1854 to 1858 he was in- structor of cavalry and artillery tactics at West Point, and received his commission of major, 12 Oct., 1858. Gen. Scott appointed him military secretary. 1 Janu- ary, 1860, and he became colonel of the 11th Infantry, 14 May, 1861, and soon after brigadier-general of volunteers, the Civil War having broken out. General Keyes participated in the first battle of Bull Run, and commanded a corps in the Army of the Potomac. For gallantry at the battle of Fair Oaks, he received the brevet of brigadier-general in the regular army. On 6 May, 1864, he resigned from the army and went to California, where he engaged in mining and other business enterprises. He became a Catholic in San Francisco, in 1866. His death took place in France, but his remains were brought back to New York for interment. He was the author of "Fifty Years' Ob- servation of Men and Events" (New York, 18S4), which contains many anecdotes of public interest.

CoLLDM, Biog. Regist^ of the Officers and Graduates of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point, A'. 1'. (New York, 1868).

Thom.4.8 F. Meehan.

Keys, Power of the. — The expression "power of the keys " is derived from Christ's words to St. Peter