The Boehner Centenary

THE BOEHNER CENTENARY The Franciscan Institute recalled the hundredth birthday of Father Philotheus Boehner on September 6, 2001. Born February 17, 1901, in Lichtenau, Westphalia, and baptized Heinrich in the parish church, Boehner died at St. Bonaventure, New York, on M ay 22, 1955. Gathering for the modest celebration were members of the Institute staff, Institute students, and a delegation from Lichtenau. The dele­ gation consisted of a town official and members of the Boehner family. In September 1939, soon after the outbreak of hostilities in Europe, Boehner left Toronto, where he had been working with Etienne Gilson. He came to what was then St. Bonaventure College in southwestern New York State. The president of the College at that time was Father Thomas Plassmann. Together they began The Franciscan Institute in 1940. Plassmann provided space, real and institutional, for such an endeavor, and Boehner filled that space with the organization as well as the achievements of scholarly enterprise. He brought knowledge, experience, and the love of learning, which turned a good idea into a busy program of teaching, research, and publication. The Institute was good for the school. St. Bonaventure received its charter as a university in 1950. One solid reason for the promotion lay in the Institute as it was being administered by Father Philotheus. Father Allan Wolter gave the homily at the afternoon liturgy on September 6. Referring to Boehner as Philo (they had been colleagues and friends), Wolter recalled a lecture that Boehner had given to the faculty and students of the biology department on the sciences in a Catholic college. Boehner took a passage from the Book of Proverbs (8: 31) to describe the creative power of God in evolutionary profusion, “playing on the surface of the earth,” ludens in orbe terrarum. Wolter pointed out that Boehner remained at heart a biologist, despite the importance of his work on the Franciscan schoolmen. In a short address after dinner that evening, Father Conrad Harkins, former director of the Institute, told how Father Philotheus Boehner had brought Ockham research to St. Bonaventure. An institute needs a challenging task, and the Ockham edition certainly was that. Boehner laid the foundation on which, from 1967 to 1988, Gedeon Gal and his associates saw to the completion, in seventeen volumes, of what Boehner had begun. Franciscan Studies, 59 (2001) 1 2 David Flo o d In the many tributes to Father Philotheus Boehner at the time of his death and in the many years since, those who knew him have always spoken of his human qualities. They have praised his simplicity and his readiness to help others, while admiring his vast knowledge and the way he put it at the service of others. The centenary celebration offered the Institute the occasion to reflect on its heritage and its mission. On Boehner, see: G. Gal, “Philotheus Boehner” in H. Damico, ed., M edieval Scholarship: Biographical Studies on the Formation o f a Discipline, Vol. 3 of Philosophy and the Arts (Garland, New York, 2000), pages 119130 (with a bibliography). THE EDITORS ...