He was widely known for his lifelong dedication to care of the poor during a tumultuous period in Europe, that had left thousands destitute.

He was born Johannes ("Hansl") Hofbauer on the feast of Saint Stephen (December 26) 1751,[2] in Tasovice), in the Znojmo District of the Moravian region of what is now the Czech Republic.

In those days the ninth of a dozen children of a poor widow in a small village could have had little hope of getting into a seminary, nor of joining a religious order.

Latin studies nevertheless started with the local parish priest, apparently signalling already a call to the priesthood, though a long and tortuous path lay ahead.

That, however, was aborted after eight years; the Emperor Joseph II, a proponent of enlightened absolutism, abolished all hermitages in the Habsburg Empire.

This was under the patronage of the local bishop, Barnabas Chiaramonte (later Pope Pius VII), who clothed him in the religious habit of a hermit.

At age 29, sponsored by two ladies he met while serving at Mass in the priory's basilica (dedicated to the Assumption and St. Wenceslas),[3] Clement-Mary Hofbauer enrolled at the University of Vienna.

On the feast of Saint Joseph, 19 March 1785, Hofbauer and Hübl were clothed in the Redemptorist habit, publicly professing vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

He was not about to countenance an evangelical religious institute, founded barely a generation earlier in Scala, to spawn within his own realm.

Fifteen years earlier, a partition had been forced on the country, land being distributed between Austria, Russia, and Prussia.

[c] The constitution “assumed a symbolic importance… It was the Bill of Rights of the Polish tradition, the embodiment of all that was enlightened and progressive in Poland’s past, a permanent reproach to the tyranny of the partitioning powers.”[9] It “sought to create a modern, centralized republic.”.

A chief author of Russian foreign policy, Alexander Bezborodko wrote "The worst possible news has arrived from Warsaw: the Polish king has become almost sovereign".

For Poland's neighbours, the links of Polish reformers with the French National Assembly reeked of revolution; throwing down the gauntlet before the absolute monarchies.

After barely a year, the machinery of the new constitution had been wrecked by Russian armies allied with conservative Polish nobility.

Clement-Mary Hofbauer and his team had been in Warsaw twelve years when, on 19 November 1799, Napoleon led a coup d'état in faraway Paris.

From 1803 the armies of France under his command fought almost every European power, and acquired control of most of continental Europe, whether by conquest or alliance.

"The whole of Praga was strewn with dead bodies, blood was flowing in streams" wrote the Russian commander, Alexander Suvorov.

This was next to the cathedral; after the dissolution of the Jesuits in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth fourteen years earlier, the church had fallen into disrepair.

It is said that the astounded men in the bar were so full of remorse that they gave Hofbauer all their winnings, more than 100 silver coins.

When he saw a homeless boy on the street, Clement-Mary Hofbauer brought him to the rectory, cleaned him up, fed him, and then taught him a trade and instructed him in the Christian way of life.

It is reported that he accompanied the struggles of his pupils, advising them, teaching them, feeding them and guiding them through everyday life.

After ensuring they got into junior high schools, he himself undertook teaching them philosophy and theology, maintaining this until presented for ordination.

After the French took over in 1806 a law was passed that forbade local pastors from letting the Redemptorists preach missions in their parishes.

[16] In 1809, when the forces of Napoleon attacked Vienna, Hofbauer worked as a hospital chaplain caring for the many wounded soldiers.

Attending to the spiritual welfare of the nuns and lay people who came to their chapel, Hofbauer gained a reputation as a powerful preacher and gentle confessor.

It is very much thanks to Clement-Mary Hofbauer that Wessenberg's plan to include Vienna in a German national church failed.

For Hofbauer's years of dedicated service, the emperor was encouraged to reward him by sanctioning a Redemptorist foundation in Austria.

Lost in the mêlée were the provincial archives of the order, and documents relating to Clement-Mary Hofbauer's activities.

A few months after Hofbauer's canonisation, a parish church was established under his patronage at West 44th Street and 10th Avenue in New York City, which served the Polish community.

Clement-Mary Hofbauer is the patron saint of the Catholic student centre's chapel at Dartmouth College.