Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer

Saint Clement Mary Hofbauer was a Redemptorist and priest who carried the congregation of Saint Alphonsus Liguori north of the Alps. He worked for twenty-one years in Warsaw and spent the last years of his life in Vienna, which is why he is called the apostle of both cities. In Poland he is also known as Klemens Dworzak. The Church commemorates him on March 15.

He was born on December 26, 1751, in Tasovice in Moravia, one of the twelve children of a butcher, and at baptism he received the name John. His father died when the boy was six, and the family could not afford his schooling. So John became a baker: he served his apprenticeship in Znojmo and then worked at the nearby Premonstratensian abbey, where the abbot allowed him to study Latin. Several times he made the pilgrimage to Rome on foot, and in Tivoli he received the hermit’s habit from Bishop Barnaba Chiaramonti, the future Pope Pius VII, and took the name Clement.

He came to see, however, that he was called to apostolic work, and with the support of benefactresses he took up theological studies in Vienna. In 1784, together with his friend Thaddeus Hübl, he entered the Redemptorists in Rome. Both made their vows on March 19, 1785, and ten days later were ordained priests.

Sent north, they could not settle in Austria, because the laws of Emperor Joseph II forbade it. In 1787 they stopped in Warsaw, where through the nuncio they were given the Church of Saint Benno and the care of German Catholics. Sermons and services in Polish and German were held there several times a day, which came to be called the perpetual mission. Clement founded an orphanage and schools for poor children and went begging himself for their upkeep. As vicar general of the congregation north of the Alps he also tried to found houses in Germany and Switzerland.

On orders from Paris, on June 20, 1808, soldiers carried the Redemptorists off from Warsaw to the fortress of Küstrin on the Oder. After his release Clement settled in Vienna, where from 1813 he was confessor to the Ursulines and rector of their church. He preached, heard confessions for hours, and kept watch beside the dying. Students, scholars, and artists gathered in his rooms, and through him many of them drew closer to the Church.

The congregation had no legal standing in Austria, so the police kept Clement under watch and he was threatened with exile. In 1819 Emperor Francis I, after speaking with Pope Pius VII, allowed him to submit a petition for the admission of the Redemptorists. Clement did not live to see the answer. He died in Vienna on March 15, 1820, at noon, as the bells were ringing the Angelus. A few weeks later the emperor permitted the congregation to work in Austria.

Since 1862 his relics have rested in the Redemptorist church of Maria am Gestade in Vienna. Leo XIII beatified him on January 29, 1888, and Pius X canonized him on May 20, 1909, and in 1914 declared him patron of Vienna. He is also venerated as one of the patrons of Warsaw and as patron of bakers.