Abbot Franz Pfanner 

The Apostle of South Africa

Born in Vorarlberg, Austria, to a good Catholic family in 1825, Wendelin Pfanner decided to dedicate his life to serving God by nurturing the Faith in the lives of the youth and reviving it in families who had lapsed into religious indifference.

He was a true evangelist and a trusted confessor, but his frail health made him choose a life of prayer and penance as a Trappist where he was given the name of Franz.

God called him to active duty once again as a missionary and a monk in Bosnia and South Africa where he founded Mariannhill in 1882 near Durban, as a centre of Catholic Faith and outreach.

ln response to his invitation, brave women dedicated their lives to God to do missionary work amongst the people of South Africa – the Missionary Sisters of the Precious Blood (1885).

They, along with the Missionaries of Mariannhill, have since lived and worked in many countries of the world in the service of God doing what Abbot Pfanner described as “the flame of your zeal – let it soar!”

He retired to a mission station at Emaus, down the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast where he died on 24 May 1909. He was buried in the cemetery at Mariannhill.

Without Abbot Francis’s zeal and devotion to serving God, the church in South Africa would not be what it is today.

Many love and honour him as their friend, father and guide and many are the favours obtained through prayer to him.

We pray that the Church will raise him soon to the status She bestows on Her heroes and heroines – the Saints.

Read the posts below to discover more about the Apostle of South Africa.