Lasallian Educational Ministry
John Johnston, FSC
Regional Convocation
Saint Mary's College
Moraga, California
August 1984
Part Two
LASALLIAN EDUCATIONAL MINISTRY: FOR WHOM?
"Our consecration constitutes us messengers to the young to declare the truth that
sets them free." (Rule, chp. 9) "Messengers to the young." While our
service is not limited to the young, they are our principal focus. God has confided them
to our care.
By vocation we are leaders of youth; guides for parents and others working with youth. We
have to know young people, how they think, what their hopes, aspirations, problems are. We
have to know how to reach them.
The youth we are called to serve by preference are youth who are poor. Our Rule is
unambiguous that we are directed by preference to the poor. (Rule, chp. 1) The 40th
General Chapter insisted that orientation towards the direct service of the poor become
the rule rather than the exception in district priorities, and that when we are not
teaching the poor directly, we must be effectively educating our students to a commitment
to justice and peace.
Solidarity with the Poor
Whatever their particular commitment, says the Declaration, the Brothers want to be
in solidarity with the poor. (Declaration, 32, literal translation) Solidarity with
the poor is a good umbrella expression: the Brother is a Christian educator in solidarity
with the poor. This solidarity commits us,
- To "see" the poverty that exists, at home and
abroad; to seek to understand the underlying issues.
- To "feel" poverty and the effects of poverty - which
implies exposure to and familiarity with the world of the poor
- To know the social teachings of the Church.
- To be sensitive to our own attitudes, feelings, prejudices;
and be disposed to confront them and, when necessary, to change.
- To live as persons of ordinary means or modest condition (Rule,
chp. 6) - otherwise we become too "at home" in the upper middle class
environment; as De la Salle says, we'll "acquire rich tastes and will no longer be
able to refrain from applauding the language of the rich, however, pernicious it may
be." (Last Will and Testament)
- To take stands, to be willing to get involved, to put
ourselves on the line, giving evidence that we are men in solidarity with the poor, people
who really care.
- To educate for commitment to justice and peace - I have the
impression that we have made significant progress in this area in the United States. Since
we must help our young people "see" the poor and learn the social orientation of
the Church as well as give them the opportunity to serve, it is encouraging to know that
such programs are enjoying high priority in our schools.
- To serve the poor directly through education, at home and
abroad. The 40th General Chapter challenged each of us "to volunteer for this
educational service of the poor wherever the most urgent needs present themselves."
(Proposition 13) A significant number of Brothers have said yes to this challenge - the
list includes Brothers of all ages, including Brothers legally retired from teaching. If
we do not see such service as feasible for us, we should, nevertheless, support the
district in placing "no obstacle, even under the plea of maintaining existing works,
to Brothers who volunteer for this educational service." (Proposition 13)
The Question of Needs
This orientation by preference for the education of the poor does not represent an option
for one specific social class and the rejection of another. Nor does it imply that those
who are not poor have no legitimate needs. It does mean, however, that we resist the
temptation of labeling anyone with needs - namely everyone - as poor, thus stripping the
word of all meaning. Thank God our First U.S. Regional Chapter declared unambiguously:
"By the word poor, we mean the economically poor." (Acts, p. 42) This
no-nonsense stance does not, however, conflict with our grand tradition of reaching out to
all "down and outers" - youngsters with behavior problems, the handicapped, the
retarded, the emotionally disturbed, the intellectually slow, etc.
It is in this context that we must understand the expression: "serving those most in
need." These are in the first place the economically poor people whose needs are not
being met, either at all or satisfactorily, by government, Church, or anybody else. The
Second U.S. Regional Chapter had these same people in mind: "In this region, the
economically dependent, the unproductive, and victims of any kind offer the Brothers the
greatest opportunity for service. These poor are excluded from a fair share of society's
benefits, in spite of their desires and efforts; they lack many opportunities necessary to
make their lives more fully human." (Acts, pp. 47-48)
The Hispanic Presence
Such economically dependent are many and I hesitate to specify any one group.
Nevertheless, I want to call attention to the Hispanic population. The publication last
December of U.S. Bishops' Pastoral The Hispanic Presence: Challenge and Commitment,
together with the debate generated by the proposed new legislation, has made all of us
more aware than ever of the needs of immigrants in the United States. In the last century
Catholic schools responded creatively and admirably to the needs of Catholic immigrants.
Today, according to the Bishops, Catholic educators must turn their skill to meeting the
educational needs of Hispanics.
I know that we have many Hispanics in our schools and that we are making every effort to
reply to their plea for help, even by the creation of new works. I want to affirm what is
being done and at the same time urge the districts to commit even more men to this
service. The need of elementary education of young Hispanics is keen. Many high school age
students need remedial help. Adult Hispanics need to learn English. Can our high schools
and colleges do even more through special evening and weekend programs?
My specifying the Hispanics and other immigrants and refugees is certainly not intended in
any way to minimize our very necessary service of poor U.S. citizens. But it is to recall
that we must always be sensitive to new needs, as well as to the perennial needs that
never cease to challenge us.
Serving the Poor, Where They Are
Several times, Brothers, I have used the phrase "service of the poor, at home and
abroad." And the poor of the world are, proportionately, abroad. Today there are
approximately sixty-six U.S. Brothers serving very significantly in a number of foreign
countries. That is approximately 4.4% of our personnel. I think the percentage should be
higher. Brothers from the U.S. are urgently needed to live, serve with, and support local
Brothers not yet sufficiently numerous or not yet adequately trained to take
responsibility for their apostolic projects; to maintain existing commitments where there
are few or no local Brothers; to promote local vocations and to assist in programs of
initial and continuing formation, to respond to special needs and to make new foundations
in reply to the urgent requests that Superior General receives regularly.
Most of the poor areas of the world can provide educational opportunities for only a
fraction of the school-age population. The needs, therefore, are urgent and demand our
serious consideration. That the U.S./Toronto Region is presently reviewing its missionary
commitment is good news. It is, of course, essential that this review take place in close
communication with the Superior and the General Council, who are charged with the
responsibility of coordinating our Institute missionary endeavors.
LASALLIAN EDUCATIONAL MINISTRY: HOW?
"The end of the Institute," says the Rule of 1705, "is to give a Christian
education to children, and it is for this purpose that the Brothers keep schools."
The end: Christian education of children; the means: the school. The school for De la
Salle was the principal and ordinary means, linked intrinsically to the finality of the
Institute. Nevertheless, it is important to distinguish end from means.
It is equally important to be precise concerning the school that De la Salle chose as the
ordinary means. It was not just any school. It was the Christian gratuitous school, the
school which embodied the values we spoke of earlier, the school which was free of charge
and therefore available to the poor for whom it was primarily intended.
The Christian School, Available to All
The General Chapters have reaffirmed the Christian-School-Available-to-All as the
"foremost apostolic work of the Brothers" (Declaration, 44) and as the
"privileged instrument" for educating the poor. (Rule, chp. 1) Obviously,
to be such a privileged instrument, the school must be creatively adapted to the needs of
the poor and realistically available to them. Brothers sometimes erroneously interpret
exhortations to give higher priority to service of the poor as exhortations to choose
non-school apostolates. That is to mix apples and oranges. Matters concerning the FOR WHOM
and matters concerning the HOW, while related, are distinct.
An Extraordinary History
Brothers, the history of Catholic schools in the United States is a clear manifestation of
the faith and commitment of our Catholic population. We can and should be legitimately
proud of our central role in this development, a development indicating that we were
"inculturated" and "inserted" actively in the local Church long before
these expressions became fashionable.
The Institute grew in the United States not in response to the needs of the poor class in
a Catholic population, but rather in response to the needs of a Catholic minority in a
population heavily Protestant and, in varying degrees, suspicious of and even hostile
towards the increasing Catholic population. Catholic schools made possible for the
children of minority Catholics, many of them poor, a Catholic education which helped them
to preserve their faith and to compete competently in United States society. The focus was
the Catholic minority, regardless of social or economic status, and not the poor segment
of a Catholic population. The financial sacrifice for Catholic education that even
low-income Catholic parents, as well as young people themselves, have made and continue to
make today is one of the most striking characteristics of the United States Catholic
Church. In like manner, the effort that Brothers have made and continue to make to keep
tuition as low as possible through their contributed services, careful economizing, and
creative fund-raising testifies to the desire of the Brothers to make their schools
available to as many young people as possible.
Continuing Mission of Catholic Schools
As the Catholic minority has gradually moved up the economic ladder, we have accompanied
them, building new schools in new neighborhoods and providing FSC communities. Catholic
schools continue to play an important part in the mission of the United States Church,
even though the majority of Catholic families, for financial or other reasons, choose not
to avail themselves of their services.
Other Possibilities
While the Christian school, ideally gratuitous, is the "privileged instrument of our
apostolate," the Institute, says Chapter 1 of the Rule, "is open to other
possibilities for teaching and education adapted to the circumstances and need of the
time."
Of the 1005 United States Brothers directly engaged in the apostolate, 89% are in FSC
schools; 11% are in apostolates apart from FSC schools. (1983 statistics).
Guidelines governing the "work of the Brothers in schools not directed by them and in
educational activities apart from schools" are provided in the Declaration
(50-52), as well as in Propositions 11, 12, and 62 of the Second Regional Chapter. The
essential is that the educational activity be carefully studied, approved by the Visitor
and Council, and become an integral, not marginal, part of the District Mission Plan, as
well as the plan of a specific local community: "Those engaged in such apostolates do
this work as members of a community and with the consent of their superior. They represent
the Institute; it is important that they think of themselves in this way and be accepted
and supported in their work by the other Brothers." And section 652 of the Declaration
says: "Sometimes, especially where positions of leadership are concerned, Brothers
will, of necessity or at least for understandable reasons, not be associated with other
Brothers in their daily work. But our Institute preference is that Brothers work together
and by association. This preference is not motivated by a blind obedience to a past
tradition, but by a conviction that an FSC community working together and by
association is a potent instrument for good.
Our Challenge Today
Brothers, as we reflect on our history in the United States, we cannot help but be
impressed. What has been accomplished is a tribute to the vision, the faith, the zeal, and
the courage of the Brothers who lived before us. We have to be just as wise, faith-filled,
zealous, courageous, and creative today as we try to find our way in a country where
Catholic descendants of the first settlers and immigrants "have arrived" (John
Tracy Ellis), where a well-educated and zealous laity are assuming more and more
responsibility for Catholic education, where new ministries are being created, where the
role of men and women in religious institutes is changing, where the number of Brothers
has diminished, where the cost of Catholic schools is a formidable and often
insurmountable obstacle for low-income families, where many United States citizens live
below the poverty line, where immigrants and refugees arrive regularly, with or without
documentation, where a Church come-of-age grapples with its responsibility to "let
go" of its provincialism and to think and act internationally, sharing its human and
material resources.
Men of 1984
In short, this is 1984. As "living men" - men of 1984 -- we must discover how
fidelity to our Lasallian charism can best be lived today. It is not surprising that there
is a tendency to pull the curtains down, to withdraw into the familiar, to try to
reinforce what we have, to retreat in order to survive. There is a predictable and
understandable reaction to calls for new ventures in response to new needs: "We must
be realistic...Where are these Brothers to come from?...Our numbers are declining...We
have too many commitments already...
And yet, the Church continues to challenge us to think otherwise. "Institutes
dedicated to the active life should sincerely ask themselves in the presence of God
whether they cannot broaden their activity in favor of expanding God's kingdom among the
nations; whether they might not leave certain ministries to others so that they themselves
can spend their energies on the missions." (Ad Gentes, 40; Declaration, 24)
And, I can add, on other critical needs.
Distribution of Personnel
After the General Council visit to the United States in 1978, we recommended a deliberate
policy of reducing the number of Brothers in some institutions and of withdrawing
the Brothers from some others, in order to make more Brothers available for urgent
needs, particularly of the poor, at home and abroad. This same orientation is at the heart
of Circular 412. These recommendations reveal our confidence that Catholic men and women
can assume more responsibility for Catholic schools today.
Both steps, of course, require careful preparation. No school should ever have to close
because of our decision. Such moves in no way reflect negatively on what we have done or
what we are now doing. The problem is not at all what we are doing; it is rather what we
are not doing. There are so many young people deprived of Christian educators. Members of
religious institutes are best able to respond, having the freedom, the supports, the
structures that make a response feasible.
Turning over an institution to others and withdrawing Brothers, for whatever reason, is
always painful for the Brothers, and is inevitably accompanied by protests from the local
people. But we have to be disposed to suffer the hurt and to subordinate our own feelings
to the mission of the Church.
The Real World
Where does all this leave us? Brothers, we do have to be realistic. We do have to be
sensitive to the desires and needs of the Brothers themselves. We do have to be serious
about commitments made in the past. I am not advocating any kind of recklessness. But I am
pleading for a frontal attack on the "holding pattern" and "survivor"
mentality. I am advocating corporate evaluation, decisions, and action. Permit me to
communicate some strictly personal views on the distribution of personnel:
1. I would favor designating a number of our FSC schools in each district, at home
and abroad, as schools the Brothers would administer with a number of Brothers sufficient
to be a significant animating influence in the Lasallian Family. Please note that I am not
talking about the former FSC-lay triangular model of collaboration, but the circular model
of Lasallian Family; I am not talking about "Brothers' schools" but
"Lasallian schools."
Such schools - first-class Christian schools embodying the values of Lasallian education -
can be examples of what Christian education is all about. Furthermore, the availability of
such schools is necessary for the many Brothers who want to work in schools that are
explicitly Lasallian and administered by the Brothers themselves. Maintaining a number of
excellent Lasallian schools, therefore, contributes to the mission of the Church and at
the same time responds to the interests, talents, and aspirations of a number of Brothers.
2. I would favor maintaining a strong commitment to the institutions we presently
have for the service of the poor, of immigrants, of youngsters with behavior problems,
etc. This commitment implies a willingness to provide the specialized training that
Brothers in such institutions need.
3. I would favor giving high priority to our colleges in the United States. I am
convinced that Catholic higher education is an important element in the mission of the
U.S. Church and that many Brothers have a gift for contributing on this level. At the same
time, we must participate actively in the continuing search for the meaning of the
Catholic college and university and commit ourselves to strengthening the identity and
character of our institutions as Catholic. Furthermore, I believe the Brothers in the U.S.
can help the Institute articulate the relationship of the FSC to higher education, an
articulation that has not yet been done on the Institute level.
4. I would favor district commitments of FSC communities to collaborative efforts
of long and short duration, at home and abroad, with dioceses, parishes, lay groups, or
other religious institutes, in schools and other educational projects, giving priority to
needs of the poor or disadvantaged or to the need for Catholic education in remote areas.
We already have a number of such commitments. Others could be created. Some could be joint
ventures of two or more districts.
5. I would favor a deliberate policy of making Brothers available:
a. for positions of leadership in education: for
example, in administration, religious education, youth ministry, justice and peace, adult
education, particularly on the diocesan level;
b. for special needs in Lasallian projects at home and abroad, particularly when
help is requested by the Superior General and General Council or by other districts.
The Price to Pay
Obviously, Brothers, the fourth and fifth possibilities cannot become realities if we are
paralyzed by present commitments. That is why I suggest that while we renew and strengthen
a number of our commitments, we reduce the number of Brothers or withdraw them completely
from some others in order to make possible other ventures at home and abroad. Such moves
would have to be preceded by careful planning, but planning that terminates in decision
and action within a reasonable period of time.
 
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