Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools

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For a different Roman Catholic order commonly known as "Christian Brothers", see Congregation of Christian Brothers.

The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, also known as the Christian Brothers, the Lasallian Brothers, the French Christian Brothers, or the De La Salle Brothers, is a Roman Catholic religious teaching order, founded by French Priest Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle. De La Salle was a canon of the cathedral and came from a wealthy family. He had the idea of setting up free schools where the children of the working class and the poor could learn reading, writing and arithmetic. They would also receive religious instruction and other training appropriate for forming good Christian citizens.

To this end, he brought together a group of men to live in community and conduct the schools. He is credited with establishing a regimen of education which emphasized the good of the student, banning corporal punishment from their institutions. The founding of the order is generally dated to 1680. It was the first religious community of men in the Roman Catholic Church not to include clergy, the Institute being comprised solely of lay brothers who are often called Lasallian Brothers. Initially Jean-Baptiste de la Salle sent two lay brothers for training as priests, but on their way back they met untimely deaths. Jean-Baptiste took this as a sign from God that the order should remain as a society of lay brothers.^{[citation needed]}He then concluded that his Brothers would be "Elder brothers to those they taught and brothers to each other".

The institute underwent two periods of upheaval in France. The first during the French Revolution when schools were closed and some Brothers lost their lives. By 1805 Napoleon Bonaparte restored the institute in France which began a period of rapid growth for the Brothers. By 1810, the institute had 160 Brothers working in France and Italy; 90 years later by the end of the century, the institute had 14,631 Brothers working in 35 countries. [1].

The second period of upheaval began in 1904 when France began to enact a series of "secularization laws." These laws essentially expelled most Catholic religious from France and forced the closing of schools. Brothers left France to continue work overseas, notably in Belgium, Canada, and Spain as well as Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, North Africa, and Australia. [2].

Today the order runs schools in 80 different countries, in both developed and developing nations, with more than 900,000 students in their schools [3]. The community is headed by a Superior General with the assistance of a General Council. As of 2000, the Superior General is Brother Alvaro Rodriguez Echeverria, FSC, of Costa Rica. [4]

From 1882 until 1989, a non-profit arm of the order ran a winery in the Napa Valley at Greystone Cellars near St. Helena, California. Most famous for Christian Brothers Brandy, the operation and rights to the name were sold to Heublein, Inc. in 1989. [5]

In 1981 the order started an ethical or socially responsible investment service for Catholic organizations. The service attempts to use its shareholdings to influence the way the companies in which it has invested operate. [6] .La Sallian schools and institutes usually incorporate the Signum Fidei as a mark of their heritage.