Christian Brothers of Ireland

BROTHERS OF THE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS OF IRELAND (CHRISTIAN BROTHERS). - Religious institute founded at Waterford in Ireland by Edmund Ignatius Rice (1768-1844), a wealthy local merchant, who in 1802, after the death of his wife, was thinking of retiring to monastic life, when a group of abandoned boys, pointed out to him by a pious person, determined his vocation. He then opened his first school in a poor quarter, forming there a religious community of lay teachers, dedicated to the instruction and education of young people, along the lines of what St. John Baptist de La Salle had done in France.

The laws then in force prohibited the rise of religious congregations in Ireland, but the new institute was able to prosper and spread rapidly.

Pius VII approved it on 5 Sept. 1820. Today the Brothers of the Christian Schools of Ireland are divided into 5 religious provinces: the Irish with 95 schools, the Australian with 82, the English with 14, the American with 18, the Indian with 12, besides the houses of South Africa and of Buenos Aires which do not form separate provinces. Several thousand are the pupils who attend their schools from elementary to secondary level, where instruction is imparted with teaching methods suited to the needs of the times and places. The religious number 2226 today.

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