CHRISTIAN BROTHERS

The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (also known as the Christian Brothers, the Lasallian Brothers, or the De La Salle Brothers, is a Roman Catholic religious teaching order, founded by French Priest Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle. The Brothers commit themselves to God and live in community, together and by association. This commitment requires seeing reality with the eyes of faith, life of prayer, strength or character, generosity, flexibility and a willingness to take risks.

De La Salle was a canon of the cathedral of Rheims, France, and came from a wealthy family. He gradually became involved with a committed lay man, Adrian Nyel, who began setting up free schools where the children of the working class and the poor could learn reading, writing and arithmetic. They would also receive religious instruction and other training appropriate for forming good Christian citizens.

He trained and organized a group of men to live in community and conduct the schools. He is credited with establishing a regimen of education which emphasized the good of the student, banning corporal punishment from their institutions. The founding of the order is generally dated to 1680. It was the first religious community of men in the Roman Catholic Church not to include clergy, the Institute being comprised solely of lay brothers. At one point, John-Baptiste de La Salle had one brother, Henri L'Heureux, study for the priesthood, with the intention of having him take over the supervision of the Institute. However, Br. Henri soon became ill and died unexpectedly. Jean-Baptiste took this as a sign from God that the order should remain as a society of lay brothers. He determined that his Brothers would be older brothers to those they taught and brothers to one another.

The institute underwent two periods of upheaval in France. The first during the French Revolution when schools were closed and some Brothers lost their lives. By 1805 Napoleon Bonaparte restored the institute in France which began a period of rapid growth for the Brothers. By 1810, the institute had 160 Brothers working in France and Italy; 90 years later by the end of the century, the institute had 14,631 Brothers working in 35 countries.

The second period of upheaval began in 1904 when France began to enact a series of "secularisation laws." These laws essentially expelled most Catholic religious from France and forced the closing of schools. Brothers left France to continue work overseas, notably in Belgium, Canada, and Spain as well as Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, North Africa, and Australia.

Today the order runs schools in 82 different countries, in both developed and developing nations, with more than 900,000 students in their schools. The community is headed by a Superior General with the assistance of a General Council. The North  American region oversees 56 high schools, 17 San Miguel schools that serve the at-risk middle school pupils, seven colleges and universities, four retreats, three child care institutions and one publishing house serving over 80,000 students.

Each year the schools give student’s and educator’s who demonstrate Christian Brother’s values a special award for leadership and vision. Terra Sancta Guild, based in Pennsylvania, provides many of these awards including;

1. Distinguished Service Award
2. Distinguished Lasallian Educator Award
3. The Founder’s Medal
4. Signum Fidei Award
5. Founders Keepsake Box
6. First Vows Medal

In addition to these awards, Terra Sancta Guild provides other important signs of faith for the Christian Brothers including;

1. Eucharistic Pendants
2. Hospitality Pendants
3. Liturgy Committee Pendants
4. Acolyte Pendants
5. The Founders Cross
6. Sacred Music Cross
7. St. John Baptist Se La Salle Pewter Statute

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