Brothers in the CREAT
[Christian Brothers Home Page]
The Christian Brothers are a Catholic religious congregation of lay men, founded in the city of Waterford, Ireland, by Edmund Ignatius Rice in 1802. Edmund Rice was forty years of age when he founded his congregation in response to the needs of the children of his own city and indeed the whole of Ireland.
Over the past two centuries, the Christian Brothers have worked across the globe principally in education. In more recent times they have been involved in healthcare, community development, social justice and advocacy programs, and specialised ministries work with the poor and people living at the margins of society. They currently number about 1,700 members, and undertake work in 26 countries.
They endeavour through these ministries to foster the human dignity of those they work with and to help them build better relationships with God and their fellow men and women.
History
Edmund Rice's founding charism gave birth to two congregations, The Congregation of Christian Brothers and the Congregation of Presentation Brothers. In the early days, when Edmund first began to attract followers to his way of life, they formed themselves into a little group of pious laymen. They lived together in community, and began to follow an adaptation of the Presentation Sisters' Rule written for the Presentation Sisters by Fr Laurence Callanan OFM. The Holy See had already approved of this Rule when Edmund and his followers began to use their adaptation of it in 1809 to guide their first faltering steps along the path of religious life.
The granting of the Apostolic Brief in 1820, allowing the infant Congregation to become an Apostolic Institute, was a defining moment for all of the early brothers. A few men withdrew from Edmund's enterprise at this point, another few wished to stay with their local bishops (and are known as the Presentation Brothers), the majority accepted the Brief and went on to become the Congregation of Christian Brothers.
Early History in Oceania
The Christian Brothers came to Australia - first to all, to Sydney - in 1843, at the invitation of Archbishop Polding, but in 1848 the Brothers returned to Ireland because of misunderstandings.
They returned to Australia and arrived in Melbourne in 1868 at the invitation of Bishop James Goold. Within thirty five years, the remarkable Brother Patrick Ambrose Treacy had responded to invitations from various Bishops to establish schools in the Dioceses of Brisbane, Sydney, Dunedin and Perth. The task of the Brothers in the region, as mandated by the Bishops, was the evangelisation of the mainly poor, mainly Irish, Catholic families of the colonies.
