De La Salle Brothers

History

The order was founded by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, a French priest from a wealthy family. In March, 1679, La Salle met Adrian Nyel in a chance encounter at the Convent of the Sisters of the Infant Jesus. Nyel asked for De La Salle's help in opening free schools for the poor boys in Reims. A novitiate and normal school were established in Paris in 1694. La Salle spent his life teaching poor children in parish charity schools, and was canonized as a saint on 15 May 1900. In 1950 Pope Pius XII declared him to be the "Special Patron of All Teachers of Youth in the Catholic Church".

The order, approved by Pope Benedict XIII in 1725, rapidly spread over France. It was dissolved by a decree of the National Assembly set up after the French revolution in February 1790, but recalled by Napoleon I in 1804 and formally recognized by the French government in 1808. Since then its members penetrated into nearly every country of Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Australia.

The Institute traces its North American beginnings back to 1837 Montreal. From there, brothers traveled in 1845 to staff Calvert Hall in Baltimore. This became the first permanent Lasallian school in the United States. In 1848, four Christian Brothers journeyed to New York from France, and within two months they established St. Vincent’s Parochial School on Canal Street at the request of Bishop De Charbonnel. In 1851 five Brothers came to Toronto, Ontario at the request of Bishop De Charbonnel and opened De La Salle College (“Oaklands"). The Generalate was transferred to Rome in 1936.

They numbered about 14,000 members at the beginning of the 20th century running over 2,000 schools. The Brothers of the Christian Schools says that it is "the largest religious order of Brothers in the Church dedicated solely to the mission of Christian education".

The order

As religious, members take the three usual vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The Institutes headquarters is in Rome, Italy. The order has five global regions: North America (Région Lasallienne de l’Amérique du Nord, RELAN), Asia/Oceania (Pacific-Asia Regional Conference, PARC), Europe/Mediterranean (Région Lasallienne Européenne-Méditerranéenne, RELEM), Africa (Région Lasallienne Africano-Malgache, RELAF), and Latin America (Region Latinoamericana Lasallista, RELAL).

During the International Year of Literacy/Schooling (1990), UNESCO awarded the NOMA prize to Lasallian Institutions.

The order says that its key principles are faith, proclamation of the gospel, respect for all persons, quality education, concern for the poor and social justice.

In 2016 the Institute had 4,100 brothers, 75% fewer than in 1965. The decline is due partly to many brothers reaching retirement age, and the small number of new recruits. In the same period the number of students in Lasallian schools increased from about 700,000 to over a million.

Education

La Salle initiated a number of innovations in teaching. He recommended dividing up of the children into distinct classes according to their attainments. He also taught pupils to read the vernacular language.

In accordance with their mission statement "to provide a human and Christian education ... especially [to] the poor" the Brothers' principal activity is education, especially of the poor. As of 2016 the Institute conducted educational work in 80 different countries, in both developed and developing nations, with more than 800,000 students enrolled in its educational works.

Institutions

Investment services

In 1981, the Institute started Christian Brothers Investment Services, a "socially responsible investing service" exclusively for Catholic organisations, and that it "encourage[s] companies to improve policies and practices through active ownership".

Winery

The Brothers arrived in Martinez, California, US on the edge of the Carquinez Straits, part of the greater San Francisco Bay in 1868. In 1882 they began making wine for their own use at table and as sacramental wine. They also began to distil brandy, beginning with the pot-still production method that is used in the cognac region.

In 1932, in the period when alcohol was prohibited in the US, they relocated the winery to the Mont La Salle property in the Napa Valley and continued making wine. In 1935 Brother Timothy Diener became wine master, and he served in this position for 50 years. In the 1950s they acquired Greystone Cellars near St. Helena, California. Varietal wine was made at the Napa Valley facility, generic wine and brandy were produced at Reedley in the San Joaquin Valley, and barrel aging was handled at Greystone.

The Christian Brothers winery operated under the corporate name "Mont La Salle Vineyards". In 1988 the winery employed 250 people and produced 900,000 cases of wine, 1.2 million cases of brandy, and 80,000 cases of altar wine. Proceeds from sales helped to fund the Christian Brothers programs and schools, such as Cathedral High School in Los Angeles, and the care of aging Brothers.

In 1989 the company was sold to Heublein, Inc.. The sacramental wine brand was purchased by four former Christian Brothers winery executives who carry on the production as a non-profit under the name "Mont La Salle Altar Wines". The Brothers retained the Mont La Salle property and have a retreat located there.

Abuse of boys

In the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA), an inquiry into institutional sexual and physical abuse in Northern Ireland institutions that were in charge of children from 1922 to 1995, the De La Salle Brothers admitted in 2014 to the abuse of boys at two institutions: the former De La Salle Boys' Home, Rubane House, in Kircubbin, County Down, and St Patrick's Training School in west Belfast, and apologized to its victims. The order accepted that one of its earliest overseers engaged in sexual offences. Representing the de la Salle order, Kevin Rooney QC said the brothers recognised that some of their members had caused "immense pain" to children which was "in contradiction to their vocation". Senior Counsel Christine Smith QC said, "...[T]hose homes operated as outdated survivors of a bygone age."

According to Tom O'Donoghue, in contrast to the more elite boarding school, "...schools for the lower social orders usually had the highest pupil-teacher ratios, resulting in many turning to corporal punishment as a behavioral management strategy". He also notes, " ...they were often... placed in charge of huge numbers of children from troubled backgrounds at a time when there was no professional child-care training.

The Inquiry's first public hearings were held from January to May 2014 with the inquiry team reporting to the Executive by the start of 2016. Module 3: De La Salle Boys Home at Rubane House, Kircubbin, started on 29 September 2014 and was completed on 17 December, when the chairman paid tribute to the victims who testified. By October 2014 about 200 former residents of Rubane House made allegations of abuse, and 55 alleged that they themselves were physically or sexually abused. Billy McConville, orphaned when his mother Jean McConville was abducted and shot by the IRA in 1972, waived anonymity and described repeated sexual and physical abuse, and starvation, at Rubane House. During the inquiry counsel for the De La Salle order said compensation had been paid, and accepted that some members had abused young boys at the home, but that the order believed that some claims "did not take place".

Brother Francis Manning F.S.C. said that the order welcomed the inquiry. Before the abuse issue had become public a Brother wrote in a letter to an alleged abuser “It is best forgotten and I have told some brothers that no reference is to be made to it among themselves or the boys. The whole affair is best dropped with the prayer that all will learn that lesson that our holy rule is very wise in its prescriptions”. The order conducted dozens of internal interviews in this case, but did not report the matter to police.

In 2014 pupils who were beaten and raped at St Gilbert's approved school (for young minor offenders) in Hartlebury, Worcestershire, England run by brothers from the De La Salle order, revealed "a 30-year campaign of sadistic and degrading abuse". The headmaster, deputy headmaster, and Brothers were reported to have been among those responsible. Police launched an investigation into allegations of abuse at the school between the 1940s and 1970s after former pupils were interviewed by BBC Hereford and Worcester, and documents intended to be unavailable until 2044 were released under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Arrests of two former staff members on suspicion of offences including assault occasioning actual bodily harm and sexual activity with a boy aged 13 to 15 were made in 2015. Other, named, abusers were reported to have died.

There were other cases with many victims in countries including Scotland (St Ninian's in Gartmore, Stirlingshire; St Joseph's in Tranent; St Mary's in Bishopbriggs), Australia, and Ireland. Serious and detailed allegations about decades-old abuse have been reported in the US, with lawsuits ensuing After the scandal became widely known, branches of the Order apologised, publicly or to individual victims, for several of these cases. At St William's residential school in Market Weighton, England, between 1970 and 1991 many boys were abused; 200 now adult men have said they were abused. Abusers including the principal, James Carragher, were imprisoned in 2004 for past sexual abuse at the home. The Catholic Church had several opportunities to investigate the abuse, but did nothing; many of the complaints of abuse by others went through Carragher. Five victims started High Court action for compensation in 2016. The De La Salle order repeated their apologies for and condemnation of the abuse.

In Australia the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which started in 2013, reported in December 2013 that in the period 1 January 1996 to 30 September 2013, 2,215 complaints of abuse were received by the Catholic Church's Towards Healing programme, mostly relating to 1950–1980. "The Church authority with the largest number of complaints was the Christian Brothers, followed by the Marist and then the De La Salle Brothers. The most common positions held by the Church personnel and employees subject to a Towards Healing complaint at the time of the alleged incident were religious brother (43% of all complaints), diocesan priest (21% of all complaints) and religious priest (14% of all complaints)."

Lasallian saints