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