St. Clement Hofbauer

St. Clement Maria Hofbauer Biography

John Hofbauer, also known as St. Clement Mary Hofbauer, a native of Austria, was the ninth of twelve children of a butcher. As a boy, he longed to be a priest, but the family did not have enough money to send him to a seminary. At the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed to a baker. With this experience he was able to work in the bakery of a monastery at Bruck. While there he managed to secure some education.

He became a hermit until the emperor did away with hermitages. Then he went back to his profession of baking. Later, he was fortunate enough to find people who would pay for his seminary training. He went to Rome and enrolled in the Redemptorists.

Some time before this he had taken the name Clement by which he was known for the rest of his life. St. Alphonsus, founder of the Redemptorists, was still alive when Clement arrived. He was delighted, because the Redemptorists had never spread beyond Italy. He was confident that Clement would establish the society north of the Alps.

Taking the name Clement Mary Hofbauer

After he was ordained, Clement wished to go to Vienna, but the emperor would permit no religious foundations in Austria. He and another priest and a lay brother went to Warsaw, Poland. They began their labor in the utmost poverty. They slept on tables because they had no beds.

They had to borrow their cooking utensils. For the next twenty years they did an amazing amount of work. They preached five sermons every day, three in Polish and two in German. They started an orphanage and collected alms for it. They administered two large parishes.

A school for boys was founded. Protestants came into the Church, and Clement was particularly successful in the conversion of Jews. As the community increased, Clement sent missionaries to other countries. Then Napoleon became master of Poland and suppressed religious communities.

Clement went to Vienna in his native Austria and spent his last twelve years there. He was not allowed to found a house of the Redemptorists, so he acted as chaplain to the Ursuline nuns. He was free to preach and to hear confessions and to make sick calls.

Through him, fresh vigor was poured into the religious life of Vienna. He did not live to see the Redemptorists established in Austria, but he had perfect confidence. “Scarcely shall I have breathed my last when we shall have houses in abundance,” he said. This prophecy was fulfilled. St. Clement is sometimes called the second founder of the Redemptorists because he first planted the congregation north of the Alps.

You may also be interested in a Pope St. Clement Medal.