Bernhard was the eldest of eleven children of Heinrich Georg Bendel and his wife Katharina, née Michel.
After six years, Bernhard Bendel graduated with a high school diploma in 1928.
He then began his studies at the Philosophical-Theological College of Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt am Main.
On December 8, 1933, he was ordained as a priest at the Limburg Cathedral by Bishop Antonius Hilfrich.
[2] On 28 May 1950, he founded the Opus Spiritus Sancti, an association of the faithful that brings together two societies of apostolic life and three secular institutes of diocesan right.