The Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, founded by St. Alphonsus, is to follow the example of Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, by preaching the word of God to the poor, as He declared of Himself: "He sent Me to preach the Good News to the poor."

His Life
St. Alphonsus on Prayer
St. Alphonsus: Doctor of the Church
Friend of the Abandoned
Devotion to Mary
Artist

Virtue of the Month

St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists) in Scala, a small town on the outskirts of Naples, Italy, in 1732. Moved by compassion for the poor, especially those living in the country districts, Alphonsus set out to share the good news of the Gospels with those who had been abandoned by society. He preached his first mission to the goatherders living in the hills around Scala.

In 1787, St. Clement Hofbauer brought the Redemptorists over the Alps, and established the first foundation outside of Italy. St. Clement's work in Warsaw, Poland, and later in Vienna, Austria, laid the groundwork for the Redemptorist mission to the Americas.

On June 20, 1832, a few months shy of the Congregation's 100th birthday, six Redemptorist pioneers from Austria landed in America. They came to work among the isolated German immigrants in western Ohio and the Native Americans in Green Bay, Wisconsin and Arbre Croche, Michigan. Despite their passionate zeal for bringing the Gospel to the Indians, the confreres soon discovered that the transient nature of their flock made community living difficult. To preserve this hallmark of Redemptorist life, the missionaries soon took on more stable work at the parish level, establishing and nurturing communities of German-speaking immigrants in the big eastern industrial cities like Pittsburgh, New York, Rochester, Buffalo, Baltimore and Philadelphia.