CLEMENT MARY HOFBAUER, Saint. - B. Dec. 26, 1751 at Tasswitz (Austria), d. in Vienna on March 15, 1820. After a hard and laborious youth, he lived for some time as a hermit, and then attended the University of Vienna (1780-84). At Tivoli, in the hermitage of the Madonna di Quintiliolo, he took the name C. M. (he was called John). In 1784, in Rome, he entered the Congregation of the Redemptorists; he was ordained a priest at Veroli on March 29, 1785. Shortly afterward he returned to Austria to spread his Congregation there, but, hindered by Josephinism, he went to Poland where he found a rich field of action, and the college of St. Benno (Warsaw) soon became an educational and missionary center. From 1788 C. M. was vicar general of the transalpine branch of his Congregation.

Opposed by Napoleon, he was expelled from Poland, arrested, confined. From 1808 he lived in the Austrian capital, earning the title of "apostle of Vienna." In fact he displayed an admirable activity, among the people, the aristocracy and the educated class. His numerous disciples, among whom were the most renowned leaders of Austrian Romanticism (Schlegel, Veit, Werner, Müller, Pilat, Eichendorff, the future bishops Rauscher, Ziegler, Zängerle and many others) created the preconditions of the Austrian religious renewal, which finally overturned Josephinism and restored the Catholic character of the people. On the day of his death the emperor admitted the Congregation of the Redemptorists into the Austrian States, and it was precisely from Vienna, through the work of the Saint's disciples, that its worldwide diffusion began. In 1886 C. M. was beatified and in 1909 canonized; he is the patron of Vienna.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: M. Haringer, Leben des ehrw. Dieners Gottes C. M. H., Ratisbon 1886 (Italian trans. by C. Benedetti, Vita del ven. servo di Dio C. M. H., 2nd ed., Rome 1887); P. J. Hofer, Der hl. Klemens M. H., 3rd ed., Freiburg im Br. 1923 (English, French, Dutch trans.); M. Bauchinger, Der hl. Klem. M. H., 7th ed., Vienna 1927; M. De Meulemeester, Bibliographie générale des écrivains Rédemptoristes, II, Louvain 1935, pp. 196-97; III, ibid. 1939, pp. 320-31; G. Hünermann, Pater H., der Führerich Gottes, Innsbruck 1936. Cf. Monumenta Hofbaueriana, so far 12 vols., Orun 1915-39.

Giuseppe Löw

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Clement Mary Hofbauer, Saint

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