PFANNER, FRANZ. - Born Wendelin in the world, b. 21 Sept. 1825 at Langen near Bregenz, d. at the Emmaus mission station on 24 May 1909. Ordained priest in 1850, he was parish priest at Haselstauden, which he gave up because of illness and moved to Agram (Croatia), as confessor to nuns. After a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem (1863), he entered the Trappists of Mariawald (Rhineland). In 1869 he founded the monastery of Mariastern, near Banjaluka, in Bosnia, transforming it into a center of culture and evangelization in that Muslim country.
In 1880 he set out with 31 confreres for the apostolic vicariate of the Cape of Good Hope, where the foundation at Dunbrody failed for lack of water. On 27 Nov. 1882 he passed into the vicariate of Natal. On 27 Dec. 1882 Fr. P. celebrated Mass for the first time at Mariannhill. From their very arrival the Trappists began the evangelization of the Zulus. In 1885 Mariannhill was constituted an abbey; the first abbot was Fr. P. From that same abbey developed the Congregation of the Missionary Religious of Mariannhill. In the same year he founded the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Most Precious Blood (v.). Abbot P. was suspended in 1892, because of calumnies, from his abbatial functions for a year, and then renounced his dignity. He founded the Emmaus mission station, where he lived as a simple missionary until his death.
Bibliography
Nicola Kowalsky