Fr. Sebastian Weissenberger (1886-1977)

Father Sebastian Weissenberger passed away November 2, 1957.

Father Sebastian came to the United States with his parents and at a young age began his education at the St. Benedict’s Abbey Schools.  He entered the community, made his novitiate in Atchison and made first vows in 1905.  Completing philosophical and theological studies in Atchison he was ordained June 24, 1910.  After a few years at the college he was assistant pastor at St. Benedict’s Church, Atchison, but returned to the college staff in 1918 and remained there as chaplain, prefect of St. Gregory’s Hall—the seminary department—and professor of German and Spanish.  He had earned a degree in German from the Catholic University of America in 1930.

Father Sebastian was assistant pastor at St. Joseph’s, Atchison, from 1958-59 and auxiliary Chaplain at St. Mary’s Hospital, Manhattan, Kan., 1963-64.  In his career he was manager of the Abbey Student Press and master of brothers.

He early on saw that there was a need for evangelization to Hispanics and subscribed to a pastoral/worship aid called “Buen Pastor.”  He passed that on to one of the clerics who had taken Spanish at Maur Hill and who found that experience helpful later on as one of the founders of the Mineiros Priory, Brazil, in 1962. 

Sebastian delighted in pointing out the relationship between the appearance of the yellow dandelion leaves and the Spanish for “Lion’s teeth” – “dentes leon.”  He would then chuckle!