An Outgrowth Of Education

Wimmer Wednesday. Boniface Wimmer’s focus was on education and ministry. From that all else would follow.

“A large German population would be found near the monastery, much as in the Middle Ages, villages, towns, and cities sprang up near Benedictine abbeys. Then the monks could expect a large number of children for their school, and in the course of time, as the number of priests increases, a college with a good Latin course could be opened. They would not be dependent upon the tuition fee of the students for their support, which they could draw from the farm and the missions (though these would not be a source of much income in the beginning). Thus they could devote their energies to the education of the poorer classes of boys who could pay little or nothing, and since these boys would daily come in contact with priests and other monks, it could scarcely be otherwise but that many of them would develop a desire of becoming priests or even religious. I am well aware that to many readers these hopes and expectations will appear too sanguine…

“Is it any wonder that he should show no inclination for the priesthood when he sees a priest scarcely once a year; when divine services are held in churches which resemble hovels rather than churches, without [splendor and solemnity], when the priest has to divest himself of his priestly dignity, often travels on horse-back, in disguise, looking more like a [traveling soldier] than a priest, when the boy sees nothing in the life of a priest but sacrifice, labors, and fatigue?

“But all this would be quite different if the boys would come in daily contact with priests, if they received instructions from them, if the priest could appear to advantage, better dressed and better housed than the ordinary settler.”

—From Boniface Wimmer, Abbot of Saint Vincent in Pennsylvania, translated by Dr. Maria Von Mickwitz and Father Warren Murrman, O.S.B., editor.