NOTE: Enjoy this excerpt from The American Daily Reader, by CatholicVote president Brian Burch and Emily Stimpson Chapman. To order the complete volume, visit the CatholicVote store today!
Sebastian Wimmer lacked direction.
Born in 1809 in Bavaria, the son of a tavern keeper, Wimmer contemplated careers in the military and law before pursuing the priesthood. After his 1831 ordination, however, Wimmer decided the diocesan priesthood -wasn’t for him and entered St. Michael’s Abbey at Metten. There, the newly professed Benedictine priest took the name “Boniface.” With the name came direction.
Just as the first Boniface believed God had called him to evangelize pagan Germany, his Bavarian namesake became convinced that God wanted him to evangelize Protestant America. When his fellow monks laughed at the idea, Wimmer insisted that Benedictine -spirituality—with its emphasis on manual labor, prayer, and -hospitality—would appeal to Americans. And when his superiors expressed their misgivings, he told them, “If I cannot work in America as a Benedictine, I will go in another habit…I can be delayed and retarded, but not stopped. I can be persecuted with suspicion and distrust…but I will go my way because I freely believe that God wills it.”
It never came to that. The Benedictines sanctioned Father Wimmer’s mission in 1846, and that July, he and 18 aspirants left for America. Upon their arrival, Bishop Michael O’Connor offered them a parish in Latrobe, 40 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Wimmer accepted, and on October 24, 1846, became pastor of St. Vincent’s Catholic Church. With his installation, the first Benedictine monastery in the United States was officially established. Ten years later, more than 200 monks called St. Vincent’s Abbey home.
Although Wimmer spoke only German when he arrived, he soon picked up enough English to say, “I understand English now to the extent that I can preach just barely, hear confessions, catechize, and argue with the Protestants.” In later years, he did much more, founding five abbeys, two priories, 152 parishes, and multiple schools.
St. Vincent’s eventually became America’s first archabbey and Wimmer the most successful evangelist of the late-19th century.
Archabbot Boniface Wimmer died in 1887, having more than lived up to his name.
