Born May 4, 1901 Joseph Hoffman in Jersey City, New Jersey, he was the son of Charles Hoffman and Mary O’Rourke. In August 1915 he entered the Passionist Preparatory School, Baltimore, Maryland. Finished in 1919, he went to the novitiate at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and took his vows on November 3, 1920. He received the name Roland. His class was ordained with seminarians of the Newark Archdiocese at St. Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral by Bishop Edward Diaz of Mexico because Bishop O’Connor was ill.
After ordination Father Hoffman was sent to Rome to study Sacred Theology at the Angelicum University. Back in the United States he taught Passionist seminarians until 1947. He was then assigned to St. Ann’s Monastery, Scranton, Pennsylvania where illness afflicted him. Father Hoffman was transferred, at the recommendation of his doctor to Holy Family Monastery, West Hartford, Connecticut on October 28, 1965. He died in West Hartford.