Background
Joseph Helmpraecht was born on January 14, 1820, at Niederwinkling, Bavaria, Germany.
Joseph Helmpraecht was born on January 14, 1820, at Niederwinkling, Bavaria, Germany.
From a religious home, Joseph Helmpraecht was sent to a Benedictine school at Metten where Boniface Wimmer, later founder of the Benedictines in America, was his tutor. Thereafter, he followed courses in philosophy and theology at the University of Munich and at Louvain. In 1843 he entered the novitiate of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer at Altotting. In this year he was sent to Baltimore, Maryland, with a group of volunteer priests. On December 8, 1844, he pronounced his final vows and on December 21 of the following year was ordained by Archbishop Eccleston.
For three years Joseph Helmpraecht served as a priest of St. James’s Church and gave missions to neighboring German congregations. With this valuable apprenticeship, he was fitted for his next assignment, superior of St. Mary’s Church and the Redemptorist House in Buffalo (1848 - 1854), where he won the gratitude of Bishop John Timon for his zealous care of the Germans of the city and provincial towns, the erection of a new church and parochial school, and the foundation of an orphanage. In 1854, as rector of the important Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in New York with jurisdiction over the Church of St. Alphonsus, he built another German orphanage and gained a reputation as an understanding confessor. At the end of his term, he served a few months in Philadelphia as an assistant at St. Philomena’s in Pittsburgh, and prefect of the Second Novitiate at Annapolis, Maryland.
In 1865 Helmpraecht was called to Rome as a counselor on business concerning big society in the United States. On Helmpraecht’s return from Europe, he served in the Provincialate. After being relieved he served as pastor of St. Michael’s Church in Baltimore, and of the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer in New York, in which relationship he continued until his painful death from cancer.
Quotes from others about the person
“He was a man simple in his ways and pretentions; singularly sincere in all his works and acts; singularly seeking in all things for Gods glory and the good of men. ” - James McMaster