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A lifelong Love of Home

Vorarlberg is an ancient cultural landscape. It has been settled since times immemorial. The Rhetians came before the Celts. The Romans, too, left their imprint. Bregenz (Brigantium) received its town charter from Emperor Claudius. The Christian religion entered the region on the heels of Roman imperial troops and colonists. Later, much later, with Emperor Constantine’s rise to power and the erection of the diocese of Chur (now Switzerland), Christians felt emboldened to come into the open. Chur was separated from the north Italian archdiocese of Milan and incorporated into the Frankish imperial church. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Vienna appeared on the map, and Vorarlberg was affiliated by imperial decree, not to Salzburg of greater Austria, but to the Diocese of Brixen in Tyrol.

Vorarlbergers are said to be warm hearted people who love their homeland and the religion of their ancestors, the Catholic religion. At the same time, they are known to be demanding, strict, intransigent and quick to defend themselves when their freedom and rights are contested.

Francis Wendelin Pfanner’s ancestors came from the Alemannic (Swabian) Allgau. He explained the family name “Pfanner” as deriving from “panner”, pan-maker. The family owned a farmstead, Langen-Hub, one of several others on the border with Germany. It was approximately a three-mile walk from the parochial village of Langen and not far from Bregenz, the capital of Vorarlberg.

According to the parish register, Wendelin’s father, Anton Pfanner, was born in 1794 and on 25 October 1822 married the twenty-two-yearold “virtuous maid”, Anna Maria Fink of Weissenhub. They had three sons and two daughters. Johann und his twin-brother Wendelin were born on 20 September 1825 and baptized on the same day at Langen. Godfather to red-haired Wendelin was his paternal uncle, Wendelin Pfanner, then a student of Theology, and his godmother, Magdalena Fink, a maternal aunt. His mother died of childbed fever at the age of twenty-six after giving birth to her fifth child, a girl, who also died!

For six years, the father’s sister Catherine took care of the Pfanner children. Wendelin and his siblings called her “Godle”, dialect for godmother. She was capable and by Abbot Francis’ testimony, a “strict foster mother: industrious, economical, responsible, devout and orderly”. She did not spare the “birch” or rod. Wendelin did not particularly like her cooking, but in his later years he fondly remembered her meatless dishes, usually fry-ups: spaetzle and noodles, fatless cheese and sauerkraut.

The Founder’s Memoirs give a glimpse of the family’s faith life.

“The unwritten law was: No day without morning prayer and no main meal without grace. Grace after the midday meal was followed by a string of prayers: several Our Father’s for a happy death and prayers to St. Martin and St. Wendelin, to guard the house against malice and accident; prayers for parents, relatives and the Holy Souls in Purgatory, and finally the Angelus. After the last grace at supper we all said an Our Father for the Holy Souls, a prayer for a good night, an act of contrition and a few ejaculatory prayers. All prayers were led by my father and joined by the farmhands.”

The house in Langen-Hub, Vorarlberg, where Pfanner was born

At the age of seven, the twins started their primary education in a oneroomed school house in Langen-Hub, where a teacher, who also functioned as organist and sacristan, taught Religion and Arithmetic. German (Grammar) was not a subject, “because people thought that it was enough for peasant children to know how to read and write”.

Wendelin was only eight years old when he had to get up at five every morning to help his parents in the stables, as was the custom in rural areas. The Pfanner children also had to give a hand with cutting and sawing logs, cultivating the soil, making hey, binding sheaves, harvesting potatoes, and erecting fences.

On Low Sunday 1833, the twins were allowed to make their first Holy Communion. They were confirmed on 19 June of the same year, either in the parochial church of Bregenz or at Feldkirch. A year and a half later, on 21 October 1834, Wendelin’s father married again. His second wife was Maria Anna Hoerburger (*1808) from Sulzberg in Bregenzer Wald. She gave birth to three sons and four daughters, of whom three died soon after birth.

One early morning when the sun was just up, Wendel was to drive a two-horse wagonload of sand to the mill. He failed miserably, as the wagon overturned and the sand was spilled. His father, watching him closely, ran up and snarled: “You will never be a farmer! I give you just one more chance: Try your luck in the saw mill! If you fail again, you will study!”

Studying in Feldkirch and Innsbruck

Abbot Francis relates that very early on Michaelmas Day (29 September 1838) his father came into the bedroom which he shared with his twin brother and shouted for him to get up!

“Wendelin! You must go to Feldkirch to study!” – I was awake immediately. On this morning, I put on a new student’s coat instead of my short jacket and exchanged my coarsely sewn and heavily cleated boots with a fine pair of thin leather shoes made for town. Thus duly apparelled, someone completed my outfit by shoving a fire red umbrella under my arm. When my father dipped his fingers into the Holy Water font by the door I did the same, but I remember that I did not know why my stepmother was crying and telling me to be good. – Once we reached the highway, my father pulled out his beads and on this beautiful morning we said a whole Psalter (15 decades) in turns. Later, we boarded a nice horse drawn omnibus which brought us to Feldkirch, City of the Muses … When my father left to return home, the only thing he said to me was: ‘Pray always and study hard’!”

Wendelin was soon known all over Feldkirch on account of his red hair. His record in the 1838/​39 school registry is evidence of a good head: “Wendelin Pfanner – Conduct: Excellent; Social Studies, Religious Knowledge, Latin, Geography and History: Very Good; Arithmetic: satisfactory.” Because his first lodging was rather primitive, his godfather, now a parish priest, hired better quarters for him “at the house of two elderly ladies”. He attended daily Mass at the Capuchins’. However, after two and a half years he and a friend took up quarters with a lady and her two daughters who also boarded other students. With them he undertook hikes and weekend excursions. One evening, he found the front door at his landlady’s already locked. How could he get to his room without waking her? He quickly found a way: Making a desperate attempt to climb the leaning wall at the back of the house, he reached the open window of his room, jumped in and landed with not too much of a thud on the floor – only to find the landlady already standing in the door, shaking her head at him and saying but one word: “So, that’s how it’s done, eh?” He wished the floor had opened under his feet. Unable to utter a single word, he vowed to himself never to get into any more misconduct.

Later, a school friend remembered: “Wendelin and I had a room at Rev. Professor Wegeler’s. But after seeing under what circumstances the snuffing lady cook in the kitchen prepared our favourite dishes, we decided to leave the place as soon as the year was over.”

Wendelin spent his vacations at home, giving a hand with the work in the farm, woods, fields and sawmill. It was good exercise for him and a lot of fun besides teaching him many useful skills, as he gratefully remembered in later years.

At the end of September 1844, he and some of his classmates transferred to the Gymnasium in Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol. The way there led across the Bavarian Allgau by way of Staufen, Immenstadt and Sonthofen (“Where my father bought our excellent Allgau bulls”) to Reutte in the Lech Valley. It was a journey which the Founder vividly remembered in 1901, when he was seventy-six years old:

“All my travels from Bregenz to Innsbruck and back were across mountains and hunchbacked hills … I remember that once on a late afternoon we got caught in a dense fog and suddenly found ourselves on the edge of a cliff over which a swift brook cascaded downward. The fog had lifted just enough for us to see the horrible depth to which this brook plunged. To add to our predicament, we had a classmate with us who was shortsighted and terribly frightened. Seeing the poor fellow quaking in his boots, I said to him: ‘If you care to entrust yourself to me, I will carry you down!’ He agreed, though very reluctantly. Quickly therefore, before he could change his mind, I swung him like a sheaf under my left arm and dragged him down – like a cat, her kittens – while with my right hand I groped down the sharp rocks. He closed his eyes, screamed and prayed but, thank God, did not resist. We made it down! Laying him on the grass, I ordered him to open his eyes and stand on his feet.”

Philosophical Studies in Innsbruck and Padua

In Innsbruck, Wendelin had excellent professors, all Jesuits. He studied Philosophy and graduated with honours. His final certificate, issued 31 July 1845, confirmed his “great diligence” in all subjects except Latin Philology, in which he managed a mere “diligent”. In Innsbruck he attended the daily Eucharist at the Chapel Royal “in the presence (portraits) of Emperor Maximilian and his iron clad ancestors”. Not long after he returned from his vacation for third-semester Philosophy, three of his classmates came to say good-bye. They were on their way to Padua to complete the semester at that famous university. Wendelin was much enticed but lacked the necessary funds to join them. Well, they said: “Volenti nil difficile! (Nothing is difficult for the determined.). They were right! In no time he found a family friend who was working in Innsbruck to lend him traveling fare and a little more. He instructed him to send the bill to his father and gave him a handwritten note to enclose with it saying that he, Wendelin, had gone to Padua for further studies.

That problem solved, he turned his face to the south – anxious with expectation. At the crack of dawn the following day the adventurers were gone, but not before Wendelin had left three guilders for his landlady and a farewell note: “Adieu! Here is my rent for the month; I am off to Italy!” Neither he nor his companions had visited Italy before, but they were willing to take a risk. Entrusting their luggage to a carrier, they hiked across the Brenner as far as Brixen and from there made their way to Italy by pay coach.

It was customary for Padua students to wear top hats, black tailcoats and, in that year, 1846, a “Pio-Nono-Beard”. 4Class conscious dandies strutted about the city in polished boots and, a Havana between their teeth, swung their “stylish swaggering canes”. The casual Mediterranean rhythm determined the life of the signori. “Most days the professors lectured to half empty benches … All we did in Philology was to translate ten pages of a Latin author into Italian.” Sometimes the “northern lights” from Vorarlberg were the only students attending demonstration classes in the theatre. They changed quarters several times and for different reasons, but in one place it was the landlady who complained that their hobnailed boots scratched up the marble floor of her pensione. Things were not exactly as they had expected; yet Padua did have its redeeming grace.

Abbot Francis:

“Though I came to Padua undecided about my career, I knew after one month that I would be a priest. As I observed the behaviour of the Italian students and got to know firsthand how depraved many of them were, no other but the celibate life held any more attraction for me. From that moment my eyes were set on Brixen, my bishop’s residence and the place of the diocesan seminary of Tyrol.”5

Padua had nothing further to offer to the Vorarlbergers. Though derided as “barbarians!” and “potato eaters!” their final certificates were the best the professors issued that year. They departed as quickly as possible, taking the train to Verona and continuing by coach to Lake Garda and Milan via Pavia. The last leg was done again by train as far as Lake Como. From there they went on foot across the Spluegen Pass and by mail coach past Liechtenstein to Feldkirch. At Langen-Hub, father and siblings were just bringing in the hay when Wendelin walked in the door. Happy to be home again, he willingly gave a hand. In fact, he spent his entire vacation, not with books, but with rake and pitchfork!

At the Brixen Seminary

The first year in Brixen, 1846 – 47, was a so-called “free year” with candidates attending lectures at the seminary but boarding on their own. Wendelin took his studies more seriously now. At the end of the first year he scored a “very good” in Church History under Professor Fessler and in Oriental Languages – Arabic, Syrian, Chaldean – under Professor Gasser, besides getting good passes in Biblical Archeology and Hebrew.

As soon as the students transferred to the seminary they received the clerical tonsure and the “short clerical cassock with tie”. Life now consisted of studies and offered very few diversions. Although there was a bowling alley and a beautiful garden to stroll around in, these pastimes did not provide enough exercise for one who had grown up on a farm in Vorarlberg. The view from his attic window was gorgeous but the mountains he could see were “out of bounds”. Too little exercise, cramped living space and a diet that was “far too greasy and devoid of fiber and vegetables” undermined his health. How could he remain fit? Wendelin took every opportunity to flex his muscles.

Abbot Francis:

“I remember that once during our common recreation my fellow seminarians wished to give themselves additional exercise by freehandedly standing up a tall pole with a handkerchief tied to its top. They could not do it. The few who tried fell on their faces, pole and all. But when they saw me coming they shouted: ‘Here comes Pfanner! He can do it! Just watch him!’ I needed no coaxing but simply picked up the pole, tied my cassock to it and with one jerk: ‘heave-ho!’ stood it up straight, while not moving an inch from my foothold … I venture to say that if there had been prizes for such feats, I would have fetched the first prize every time.”

Later, the Founder remarked that it was the unbalanced diet more than anything else that undermined his health. He came down with a heavy nosebleed and was diagnosed with pneumonia and an inflammation of the brain. Losing consciousness several times, he became so weak that the doctor sent him home to pick up new strength.

The following year, 1848/​49, was rather quiet and uneventful. Or was it?

Abbot Francis:

“The only thing I vividly remember about my last year [before ordination] was that I suddenly felt a powerful urge to go to the missions. I also know what triggered it. It was the verse in the Miserere: Docebo iniquos vias tuas et impii ad te convertentur: ‘I will show your ways to the godless and sinners will return to you’. (Psalm 50 : 15), which we prayed every week. It haunted me until I confided the matter to my spiritual director and confessor. He submitted ‘my case’ for decision to the prince bishop. Before long, His Excellency ruled: ‘Oh, that Pfanner lad! He is not strong enough to go to America. He better stay at home.’ – In those days, at the mention of ‘mission’ and ‘unbelievers’ people understood America and nothing but America.”

The bishop had spoken and Wendelin stopped dreaming about the missions. Or did he? For the time being his mind turned to other pursuits. After successfully passing his finals he went on what he called “a pilgrimage to ‘Holy Cologne’.” – In the late middle ages, Cologne had been the most frequented place of pilgrimage after Jerusalem, Rome and Santiago de Compostella. Wendelin had collected enough money for the trip by saving his meagre allowance and cutting his fellow students’ hair. He deliberately denied himself “simple pleasures” for the greater pleasure of seeing a bit of the world and “travelling intelligently”, i. e., learning by seeing rather than reading.

His trip fell in the late summer of 1849. Setting out from Munich, he went via Augsburg, Nuernberg, Bamberg and Wuerzburg to Frankfurt/​Main and from there via Coblenz and Bonn to Cologne. He kept his money – all in twenty-ducat coins – safely sewn in his red leather belt and carried his underwear in a backpack. The currency differed from one county or canton to another and so did the food. If, for example, he asked for a bun, he was “served a bun with butter”, although he would have preferred it dry as at home. But such was the custom. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

The one thing he wished to see before anything else was the cathedral of Cologne with its two grand spires just then under construction. It was in Cologne where he, as president of the “Cologne Cathedral Building Society of Brixen”, delivered the contributions of his fellow seminarians. Then he took a closer look at the magnificent gothic structure.

Abbot Francis:

“I could not see enough of it! If only I could have taken the magnificent edifice with me!6 Construction had been interrupted for many years because the master plan had been misplaced, only to be found again much later in an attic in Darmstadt. I would have also visited Aachen and Brussels, if it had not been for a nasty footsore I had developed when climbing in the Tyrol Alps. Because of this sore I had to discard my boots and buy a pair of soft open shoes, the kind worn by ladies … Leaving Cologne, I travelled up the Rhine via Darmstadt and Worms to Speyer and from there to Heidelberg, Mannheim and Karlsruhe. I was lucky to be able to use one of the new railway lines as far as Freiburg.”

His next longer stop was Strassburg, and only after he had marvelled at all the wonderful sights that famous city offered did he continue his journey to Basel and from there via Lake Lucerne to Switzerland. Though he did not climb the Rigi – “because it was shrouded in mist” – he did visit Flueli7 and Einsiedeln Abbey, where he paid his respects to Our Lady, whom he asked “to help me become a good priest”. On he went on foot to the “delightful Lake Zurich” and from there to Schaffhausen to see “the Rhine Falls”. Passing Constance and Bregenz he arrived home just in time to help with the hay. “Pleased to see you after so many days,” his father welcomed him drily. “We have had nothing but rain so far. Much hey and grass is flat … You will have lots to share I should think but the stories must wait until Sunday!”

Once the harvest was in the barn, Wendelin had a few free days before he returned to Brixen for his final year of Theology. He had excellent professors: Fessler became Bishop of St. Poelten, Gasser, Prince Bishop of Brixen, while two others represented Austria at the Diet of Frankfurt (1848). At the Synod of Wuerzburg (also in 1848), his much esteemed teacher, the historian Dr. Gasser, was called the “living lexicon of Church History”.

Ordination and first Holy Mass

Wendelin was ordained sub-deacon on 14 July 1850, deacon, on 21 July, and priest, on 28 July – all by Prince Bishop Bernhard Galura, in the chapel of the Brixen seminary. Ten of the fifty seminarians ordained that years hailed from Vorarlberg! Soon after becoming a priest Wendelin traveled by horse carriage across the Brenner to Innsbruck and from there by postal coach via Reutte on the Bavarian border to Hindelang, where his father and the assistant priest of Langen waited to meet him. His first Mass was scheduled for 12 August at his home parish in Langen.

Abbot Francis:

“Very many of my relatives who lived scattered in different villages in the Bavarian Allgau came to Langen to welcome and congratulate their priest cousin, who was about to say his first Holy Mass. People in the Allgau consider a first Mass a particularly joyful event. The first thing these cousins and aunts of mine did was to kneel down to receive my blessing. People formed not just a procession but a triumphal parade, starting from the last village on Bavarian soil. Amid the crackling of small cannon and canopied by green triumphal arches I entered our homestead, people pressing in on me from all sides to wish me well. My mother stood with unconcealed pride in the doorway, ready to welcome me. She and my father knelt to receive my blessing, as also did my twin brother whom I had so often thrown into the grass during our boyish games in younger years. … My first Mass was a rare occasion for Langen, because the last such Mass had taken place fully twenty-five years earlier, when my priest uncle Wendelin had stood for the first time at the same altar as I. Now he and I celebrated together, he preaching the sermon.”

Before we follow the newly ordained priest to his first assignment, it may be well to pause for a brief review. It is based on the reminiscences which Fessler from Bregrenz, one of Wendelin’s classmates shared in 1888 on the occasion of their 25th anniversary of ordination. Fessler wrote:

“Pfanner was always serious about his studies. He excelled in Maths. I would like to illustrate his simplicity and self-control by referring to something he once said to us when we criticized a certain dish: ‘What does it matter how it is prepared as long as it is edible? Eat what is set before you!’ – While we were at the seminary, he was several times asked to mediate between rivalling friends and classmates. We came to appreciate his astute, practical mind, his clear vision and exquisite tact whenever he dealt with a sensitive issue.”

The editor of an 1888 commemorative brochure in honour of Abbot Francis expressed similar sentiments. According to him, the abbot was even as a youth known “to be diligent, industrious, solidly grounded in faith and morals, above board in every respect, opposed to evil in any shape and form, and fearless in expressing an opinion when it was called for. A good speaker and excellent mediator, he knew no regard for persons when he brought warring parties to terms. His faith was not shaken; neither did he change his mind once it was made up. Not given to making big or many words, he did study the theory of a proposition before he tabled it.”