In 1802 Edmund Rice set up a free school for poor young boys in Waterford, Ireland. Having provided for his daughter, Mary, he left his comfortable home and lived above the school he had recently founded.  Influenced by the work of Nano Nagle, the founder of the Presentation Sisters, he gathered around him a group of men. These he formed into a community of religious brothers dedicated to "raising up the poor".  Through Edmund's meditation on the Gospel, he became more keenly aware of the oppressive social and political realities of his day. He recognised that the education system discriminated against the poor. In the unschooled and undisciplined boys of Waterford, he found images of God.  With his sense of the God given dignity of the poor, he saw education as a means by which to recognise and promote this dignity, through liberation for personal and communal empowerment.  The Christian Brothers came to Australia - first of all, to Sydney - in 1843, at the invitation of Archbishop Polding, but left in 1848.  They arrived in Melbourne in 1868 at the invitation of Bishop James Goold. Within thirty five years, the remarkable Brother Patrick Ambrose... Read more...

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