Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/March 15

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Saint Clement Hofbauer (Clemens Maria Hofbauer) (December 26, 1751–March 15, 1820) was a hermit and is the patron saint of Vienna.

Clement was born Hansl Dvorák (Hofbauer) in Tasovice (Tasswitz), Moravia. He began to study Latin at the parish rectory until death of the pastor. He was sent to become an apprentice in a bakery in 1767. In 1770 he went to work in the bakery of the Premonstratensian monastery of the White Monks in Bruck abbey.

In 1771, for some months, he was a hermit at the shrine of Our Lady of Quintiliolo. It was at this time that he took on the name of Clement Mary.

He returned to the monastery of the White Monks at Kloster Bruck to bake bread and to begin the study of the Latin language once again. At the age of twenty-nine, Clement entered the University of Vienna. Since the government had closed all seminaries, students for the priesthood had to study at government-controlled universities.

During a pilgrimage in 1784, he was accepted into the Redemptorist novitiate at San Giuliano in Italy. On March 19, 1785, Clement Hofbauer became Redemptorist.

A few months later, he was send across the Alps to establish the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in northern Europe. The political situation did not allow Clement to remain in his own country. Clement and his companions moved on to Poland, to help restore Catholic Faith in Warsaw. Clement opened the Child Jesus Refuge for his homeless boys. In 1791, four years after their arrival, the Redemptorists enlarged the children's refuge into an academy. A boarding school had been opened for young girls under the direction of some noble Warsaw women.

In September 1808, after being exiled from Poland, Clement reached Vienna. For four years he took care for a little Italian church in the city of Vienna, until he was appointed chaplain to the Ursuline Sisters in July 1813. Attending to the spiritual welfare of the Sisters and the lay people who came to their chapel,Clement gained a reputation as a powerful preacher and gentle confessor.

He became ill in early March 1820, and died on March 15 of that year.
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Patronage: Vienna, Austria
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