Sydney
10 March 2002
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Christian Brothers told: look to the laity for the future
Old boys join Br Julian McDonald and Bishop Cremin in the singing of Danny Boy
The Christian Brothers’ future lies in expanding the order’s work with people at the margins of society, says the NSW Provincial of the order, Br Julian McDonald.
And as the order’s numbers decline that mission must increasingly be handed on to lay people.
Br Julian was speaking at Sydney Town hall during the launch of celebrations marking the bicentenary year of the founding of the order by Bl Edmund Rice.
The Christian Brothers order was founded in Waterford, Ireland, in 1802 as a religious order devoted to the education and welfare of the disadvantaged.
The Christian Brothers first came to Australia briefly in 1843 and then per manently from 1868.
They set up an Australia-wide network of schools and built a range of welfare and advocacy services for people at the “margins of society”.
Br Julian said the order was spending $2 million annually in NSW to assist disadvantaged people, on top of resources allocated to mainstream and special service Christian Brothers schools (it manages nine mainstream schools, plus special schools for the sight impaired and hearing impaired).
“The bicentenary provides an opportunity to reinforce the Christian Brothers ideal of education being a way to increase understanding of social justice and to alleviate disadvantage,” Br Julian said.
The Christian Brothers’ initiatives include:
• the establishment of social justice co ordinators in high schools;
• working with Aboriginal children to teach indigenous language, computer and sporting skills and promotion of reconciliation initiatives generally;
• school holiday camps for Aboriginal children and children of single parent families;
• a school for chronic truants in Sydney’s west;
• a program in which hearing impaired children learn to sing, plus a successful early detection program for hearing impairment in babies.
• increasing contact between mainstream schools and a school for the sight impaired as part of a program to increase social skills for sight impaired children.
Former Christian Brothers’ students at the launch included NSW Treasurer Michael Egan, Education Minister John Watkins, Fair Trading Minister John Aquilina, Supreme Court Justice Barry O’Keefe and retired Court of Appeal Justice Dennis Mahoney.
Other events planned include a bicentenary Mass to be celebrated at St Mary’s Cathedral on May 2.