Fr. Herman Mengwasser (1855-1936)

Father Herman Mengwasser ranks among the most outstanding of men ever to have entered St. Benedict’s Abbey.  He was a talented character among a variety of characters; a Latin scholar of national renown and as a country pastor, the one who built one of the most beautiful and architecturally praised churches in the State of Kansas – St. Mary’s Church, St. Benedict, Kan. – one of the 24 finalists of the Eight Wonders of Kansas, chosen in 2008.

Father Herman was born in Germany and worked for a while in the office of an architect.  He wanted to gain some experience in teaching school and planned to enter the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, Switzerland.  While there he heard of the great need for missionaries at St. Benedict’s College, Atchison.  He decided to enter the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and to study the new scholastic philosophy beginning to be taught there. 

He came to Atchison in 1869, taught Latin, Greek and German for a number of years even while studying theology, and was ordained priest by Bishop Fink in 1883.  Until 1888 he taught the classics and moral theology, was a retreat master and missionary.  He was later stationed in parishes in Iowa and then in Kansas at St. Mary’s, St. Benedict, where he built the famous church later restored by Father Bartholomew Dacek, OSB, and the parishioners in the late 1970s.

Father Herman was nationally famous for his commentaries on the hymns of the breviary, the Odes of Horace, and a critical edition of Juvencus, a Roman poet.  He also wrote a version of the Rule of St. Benedict in dactylic hexameter verse like Virgil’s Aeneid. No small thing to accomplish.  He was a genuine well-rounded missionary-scholar monk.

Father Cornelius Caples, who later succeeded Father Herman as Chair of the Department of Classics at St. Benedict’s College, once found a box on a shelf in the library; it was marked:  “Not to be opened until Latin is taught as it should be at St. Benedict’s College.  Herman Mengwasser, OSB,”  Father Cornelius thought that he was teaching Latin as it ought to be taught and so he opened the box.  In it were a gathering of teaching aids and plans developed and used over the years by Father Herman. 

Father Herman was thought to be one of the foremost Latin scholars in the United States.  Alas, that was only the tip of the iceberg!

Father Herman Mengwasser passed away February 29, 1936.