PAPAL MESSAGE TO CHRISTIAN BROTHERS ON OCCASION OF BICENTENARY

VATICAN CITY, MAR 22, 2002 (VIS) - Pope John Paul has sent a Message to the Christian Brothers on the occasion of their 29th General Chapter and the celebration this year of the bicentenary of this congregation founded in Ireland by Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice. He thanked them "in the name of the Church for all that the Christian Brothers have done through the course of two centuries in educating the young."

The Holy Father noted that the congregation was founded "at a time of great social upheaval in Europe and deep distress in Edmund Rice's native Ireland." Notwithstanding it was a time of "poverty and persecution," the "great traditions of Irish Catholic life ... flourished in new and remarkable ways when God stirred people like Edmund Rice to take up the task of educating the young, otherwise condemned to a material, intellectual, moral and spiritual poverty which demeaned not only them but an entire society."

The Pope added that Blessed Edmund "was also upholding the way of the Catholic Church, which has always put education at the very heart of her mission to preach the Gospel."

"The flame of faith lit by your Founder burns brightly still," added John Paul II, "and it is now your task to ensure that this 'fire on the earth' is as creative now as it was in the past. At a time when many cultures are experiencing a crisis in communicating religious and moral values to the young, the educational mission entrusted to you is more important than ever. Yet it is also more challenging, for this is a time when, as Pope Paul VI observed, people 'listen more willingly to a witness than to teachers, and if they do listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses'."

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