Good Catholics And Good Citizens

When Edmund Rice opened a school in Ireland, he did so in violation of the penal laws that forbid Catholic education. He founded a school in Waterford for the specific purpose of educating the poor, and he built his facility in the middle of an upscale Protestant neighborhood.

The Christian Brothers he founded established schools throughout Ireland, bringing education to the masses, with a goal to create good Catholics and good citizens.

The message was lost between 1802 and 1922.

The Christian Brothers expanded their reach and became a by-word for child abuse and cruelty. In Ireland, the order is being sued by those who survived the nightmare of the industrial schools that the order maintained.

While Irish society comes to grips with the physical, mental and sexual abuse of young boys entrusted to the care of the Christian Brothers, a familiar pattern plays out in the United States.

The many Irish immigrants who made Chicago what it is also imported their religion, and the Christian Brothers followed. They founded secondary schools that carried a certain cachet among the Irish Catholics, who would point with pride to a son educated by the Christian Brothers at Brother Rice or St. Leo.

The Christian Brothers brought their philosophy of education and their ability to shift pedophile brothers from one place to another after complaints were lodged about sexual abuse.

Thirty-one men are taking the order to court, citing sexual abuse at the hands of brothers who abused in one place and then abused where they were transferred, never being turned over to civil authorities to be prosecuted for their crimes.

The order declared bankruptcy in 2011, knowing that the filth they hid for all those years was being exposed. The most prolific of the serial abusers was finally convicted in Washington. His victims in Chicago could determine easily enough that the brother who abused them at one of three Chicago schools was the same man who was moved around rather than arrested.

Even if the men win their lawsuit, the Christian Brothers say they have no assets. There is no money to pay for psychological counseling.

It isn't about the money. It's about stopping the Church hierarchy from destroying the Church. Parents still send their children to Brother Rice for the quality and rigor of the education. They don't want that to be lost. They just want the perverts out.