Customer Reviews

An American Abbot: Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B., 1809-1887

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This extaordinary, well-written biography of Boniface Wimmer, OSB, the Bavarian founder of the American Benedictine Order, is well worth reading not only for its intimate portrait of one of American church history's most fascinating characters, but also for its thorough and insightful scholarship. The author traces the early history (1846-1887) of the Benedictines in the United States, whose work carried them from Pennsylvania to Minnesota, Kansas, New Jersey, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Illinois and other states. The book provides a narrative that will appeal to the general reader as well as the specialist.

Jerome Oetgen's treatment of Abbot Boniface Wimmer, OSB, is fair-handed and well-documented, as far as it goes. Oetgen found it necessary to write this edition--updating a previous one--after a cache of letters (The Baraga Collection) was discovered by Sr. Incarnata Girgen OSB. In them, new light was cast on Wimmer that was not altogether complimentary. The real story there is that of Mother Benedicta Riepp, OSB, and Wimmer's incredibly un-Benedictine treatment of her. For all that Wimmer dreamed of being named a saint, she's the one who was.