Abbot Innocent Wolf (1843-1922)

Abbot Innocent Wolf passed away October 14, 1922.

A book-length biography would be fitting to recount the life and times of Abbot Innocent.  In that biography there would be parallel lives, those of St. Benedict’s Abbey and College.  Father Peter Beckman has written lovingly, truthfully, and ably about the life and times of all three entities in Kansas Monks.  It appears that the election of Abbot Innocent was the decisive stroke of Divine providence that gave the community hope and which turned it around.  A massive debt became manageable and was, in time, overcome.  The community grew in number, as did the college.  The move was made from the lower campus to the land along the river bluff with the construction of the Administration building, now St. Benedict Hall.  When Father Innocent became the first Abbot of St. Benedict’s Abbey, there were nine priests, three clerics (juniors), and seven brothers.  There were in the college 26 boarders, and 27 day students.  The community cared for multiple mission stations.

The Atchison Daily Globe carried the following account of the good-natured banter at the Golden Jubilee celebration of Abbot Innocent’s priesthood and the 40th of his election.  “Father Abbot Wolf told the following story, ‘Many years ago a student at St. Benedict’s was wild to spit.  He went to the window and expectorated.  Imagine his horror when he discovered that he had spit on my head.  I was walking, engaged in thought, and just happened to pass under the window at just the time the boy spit. 

He is now Bishop Tihen of Lincoln. The bishop was a guest at the dinner and after the laughter had subsided said, ‘Well, Father Abbot, you are more forgiving than I am.  Did you ever hear the story of the brickbat and the rose?’  When the dinner guests said they had not, Bishop Tihen said, pointing to a scar on his forehead, ‘There is where the brickbat hit me.’  ‘What about the rose,’ asked a guest of the type who always ‘bites.’  ‘Oh I laid that on the grave of the man who hit me with the brickbat!’ replied Bishop Tihen.”

Much more could be written and perhaps some day will.  Coadjutor Abbot Martin Veth succeeded Abbot Innocent.