De La Salle Brothers


The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools is a Roman Catholic religious teaching congregation, founded in France by a priest named Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, and now based in Rome, Italy. The Brothers use the post-nominal abbreviation FSC to denote their membership of the order, and the honorific title Brother, abbreviated Br. The Lasallian Christian Brothers are not the same order as the Irish Christian Brothers.
In 2019 the La Salle Web site stated that the Lasallian family was formed by about 4,000 Brothers, who help in running 1,000 education centers in 79 countries with 850,000 students, together with 90,000 teachers and many lay associates. There are La Salle educational institutions in countries ranging from impoverished nations such as Nigeria to post-secondary institutions such as Bethlehem University in Bethlehem, Manhattan College in New York City, College Mont La Salle in Ain Saadeh, Lebanon, and La Salle University in Philadelphia. The central administration of the Brothers operates out of the Generalate in Rome and is made up of the Superior General and his councillors. A number of Lasallian institutions have been accused of, and have admitted and apologised for, longstanding and serious physical and sexual abuse against their charges.

History

In March, 1679, de 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. The school flourished and widened in scope; in 1725, six years after de La Salle's death, the society was recognized by the pope, under the official title of "Brothers of the Christian Schools". de La Salle 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, Africa, America, Asia and Australia.

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, Asia/Oceania, Europe/Mediterranean, Africa, and Latin America.
During the International Year of Literacy/Schooling, UNESCO awarded the NOMA prize to Lasallian Institutions.
The order says that its key principles are faith, proclamation of the gospel, respect for all people, quality education, concern for the poor and social justice.
In 2017 the Institute had 3,800 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.

Superior Generals

The following have served as Superior General of the De La Salle Brothers:

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 the poor" the Brothers' principal activity is education, especially of the poor. the Institute conducted educational work in 82 different countries, in both developed and developing nations, with more than 1,000,000 students enrolled in its educational works. There are 92,000 lay men and women who are Lasallian Partners in their institutions.
In April 2019 Peruvian authorities investigated the death of British De La Salle Brother Paul McAuley, whose burned body was found April 2 in a home he founded for indigenous students in Iquitos, in the northeastern Amazonian region.

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 companies to improve policies and practices through active ownership".

Winery

The Brothers arrived in Martinez, California, US on the southern edge of the Carquinez Strait, 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 distill brandy, beginning with the pot-still production method that is used in the cognac region. Their production expanded until 1920, when prohibition limited their production to wines for sacramental use.
In 1932, at the end of Prohibition, they relocated the winery to the Mont La Salle property in the Napa Valley and continued making wine, in larger quantities. 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.

Criticism

Child sexual abuse

In the Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, 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, "...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 FSC 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 the 1960s the deputy headmaster of St Gilbert's approved school run by brothers from the De La Salle order in Hartlebury, Worcestershire, England, was convicted of six counts of sexually abusing boys at the school. He was subsequently reinstated as a teacher at another school. In 2014, former pupils of the school described "a 30-year campaign of sadistic and degrading abuse" including rapes and beatings. A headmaster, a 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. In 2017 and 2018 two former staff members were tried for serious sexual offences, assault causing actual bodily harm, and child cruelty. They were acquitted of all charges other than three charges of child cruelty against one of the defendants, on which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Other, named, abusers were reported to have died.
There were other cases with many victims in countries including Scotland, Australia, and Ireland. Serious and detailed allegations about decades-old abuse have been reported in the US, with several lawsuits being settled in favour of victims. 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. Five victims started High Court action for compensation in 2016. Four of the cases were dismissed in December 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, diocesan priest and religious priest."
There are also ongoing investigations involving a number of other schools and the De La Salle order has only apologised where they have been legally found guilty and not where the allegations haven't been prosecuted. This had brought about a widespread condemnation from former, allegedly abused pupils who lack the evidence to bring about a prosecution.

Lasallian Saints and Blesseds

Saints