Wilhelm Emanuel Von Ketteler, baron, a German prelate, born in Munster, Westphalia, Dec. 25, 1811. After studying law and being engaged in the civil service at Munster for several years, he qualified himself for the priesthood, was ordained June 1, 1844, and became chaplain at Bock-um, and in 1846 curate at Hopsten. In 1848, as a member of the Frankfort parliament, he delivered a remarkable speech at the funeral of Lichnowsky and Auerswald, who had been murdered by the mob, Sept. 18, and advocated during the debates on the constitution the independence of the church from the state. In 1849 he was made provost of the Berlin Hedwigskirche, and next year bishop of Mentz. He became known as a most enterprising ultra-montanist, founded various institutions and religious orders and communities with the view of controlling education and charitable works, and exerted himself for the protection of Roman Catholic interests in the ecclesiastical province of the Upper Rhine and in Germany generally. With the support of the Roman Catholic grand duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt and the prime minister Dalwigk, he secured, in virtue of a secret convention of Aug. 23, 1854, special prerogatives for his diocese; and although this convention was subsequently abrogated, he retained these privileges, even after the overthrow of the Dalwigk cabinet in 1871. After having opened an asylum for the Jesuits, and identified himself with the most extreme ultramontane measures, he surprised the world by questioning the expediency of the declaration of papal infallibility, though he sympathized with the principle of the dogma; but as soon as the decrees of the Vatican were passed, he united with other bishops in submitting to them.

Ho was elected in 1871 to the first German Reichstag, and became the ablest ultramontane leader in that assembly. His principal works are: Das Recht und der Rechtsschutz der Katholischen Kirche in Deutschland (5th ed., 1854); Frei-heit, Autoritat und Kirche (7th ed., 1862); Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christenthum (3d ed., 1864); Deutschland nach dem Kriege von 1866 (6th ed., 1867); Die wahren Grundlagen des religiosen Friedens (3d ed., 1868); Das allge-meine Concil und seine Bedeutung fur unsere Zeit (5th ed., 1869); and Die Anschauungen des Gultusministers Herrn Dr. Falk uber die Katholische Kirche, nach dessen Rede vom 10. December, 1873 (1874).