Sole Intention

Wimmer Wednesday. Boniface Wimmer’s early plans focused on German immigrants.

“Father Boniface goes on to explain that he does not intend to speak about missions to the Indians, nor about parishes in towns or in the country, nor about established congregations, which already have churches, schools, and priests; he only has in mind German settlers who have established themselves there only in recent times, far away from towns, scattered in remote areas. The entire hope for the future rests on the formation of an American clergy. Even though until now many priests and much financial support have come from Germany, one must not expect that for the distant future. He continues to write, ‘But even supposing that everything remains as it is, we cannot hope to have [a sufficient] supply of priests as long as we have no means of securing a native clergy for the United States of America. For the number of those who are educated at Altötting or elsewhere in Germany is not in proportion to the continually increasing emigration to America, not to speak of the natural increase of Germans in America itself.'”

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