Profile
Clement was the ninth child of a butcher who changed the family name from the Moravian Dvorák to the Germanic Hofbauer. His father died when he was six years old. The young man felt a call to the priesthood, but his family was too poor to afford his education. He became an apprentice and journeyman baker at Premonstratensian monastery at Bruck, Germany. He became a hermit.
When hermitages were abolished by Emperor Joseph II, Clement worked as a baker in Vienna, Austria. He was a hermit in Italy with Peter Kunzmann, taking the name Clement. He made three pilgrimages to Rome. During the third, he joined the Redemptorists at San Giuliano, adding the name Marie. He met some sponsors following a Mass, and they agreed to pay for his education. He studied at the University of Vienna, and at Rome. He was ordained in 1785, and assigned to Vienna.
Clement became a missionary to Warsaw, Poland with several companions from 1786 to 1808, working with the poor, building schools and orphanages; the brothers preached five sermons a day. He was the spiritual teacher of Venerable Joseph Passerat. With Father Thaddeus Hubl, he introduced the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer to Poland. From there, he sent Redemptorist missionaries to Germany and Switzerland. Clement and his companions were imprisoned in 1808 when Napoleon suppressed religious orders, then expelled to Austria.
Clement became a noted preacher and spiritual director in Vienna. He was also a chaplain and spiritual director of an Ursuline convent. He founded a Catholic college in Vienna. He worked with young men, and helped revitalize German religious life. He worked against the establishment of a German national Church. He worked against Josephinism which sought secular control of the Church and clergy.
Born
- 26 December 1751 at Tasswitz, Moravia (in the modern Czech Republic) as John Dvorák
Died
- 15 March 1820 at Vienna, Austria of natural causes
Venerated
- 14 May 1876 by Pope Blessed Pius IX (decree of heroic virtues)
Beatified
- 29 January 1888 by Pope Leo XIII
Canonized
- 20 May 1909 by Pope Pius X
Patronage
- Vienna, Austria (named by Pope Saint Pius X in 1914)
Source: https://catholicsaints.info/saint-clement-mary-hofbauer/
