We Are All One La Salle

For some time, Lasallians have published statements and chapter documents beginning with the words:

“We Lasallians, Brothers and Partners…”

It’s a way of expressing unity of all Lasallian workers for the mission of human and Christian education to the young, especially the poor, and it uses an appositive to divide all Lasallians into Brothers or Partners.

But why not some other appositive like “women and men” or “Sisters and Brothers” or “old and young” or “professors and instructors?”

To use “Brothers and Partners” cannot be an effort to name significant numerical sub groups of Lasallians. Across the world today, these two groups of Brothers and Partners are currently 3% and 97% respectively.

Likewise, it cannot be about a special skill to effect the mission that one group has over the other. Both equally achieve the mission. It cannot be some special sacramental character or mark of distinction that separates these Lasallians in any way. Brother Álvaro has often pointed out the baptismal equality of all Lasallians, and he has made it clear that there are no second class citizens here. Recently, he wrote in his pastoral letter for the end of 2012:

“As Brothers, we are called to be the sacrament of the horizontal dimension in the Church for the life of the world, the human and compassionate face of the Church…”

Given these words, the term “Brothers and Partners” appears as a dichotomy — two mutually exclusive or contradicting groups. No Lasallian can belong to both at the same time. Can we say these two sub groups are “separate but equal?” History of the United States alone proves that separate is never equal.

On December 7, 1958 — in small upstate Barrytown, New York — 39 young men posed for a photo as they began their time of spiritual preparation for their Lasallian mission. These young men (all recent graduates of high school) were excited to be able to call each other “Brother” — especially the one right of center on the top row. On that day across the world, Brothers and Partners were close to 45% and 55% of the Lasallian family respectively. In 2008 (50 years later) 55 young men and women (all recent graduates of college) posed on those same steps as they too prepared for their work in the Lasallian mission. They called each other “Lasallian Volunteers.”

Those aware of the declining numbers of religious Brothers over the past 50+ years (and the aging of current members) glance at the contrast of these two photos and are tempted to conclude that men and women “Partners” have all but replaced Brothers in the Lasallian mission.

Serving Needy Schools, Brothers and Sisters of the 21st Century, a recent article in The New York Times, also contributes to this understanding. The article described a group of Notre Dame sponsored ACE volunteers — much like the Lasallian equivalent — who live in Tucson, AZ, and work in area Catholic schools.

“Devoting themselves to society’s overlooked and left-behind,” says author Samuel Freedman, “and living in intentional Christian households, the 1,600 teachers produced by ACE in its 19-year history have formed the 21st century equivalent of the Sisters and Brothers from Catholic religious orders whose sacrifices for decades sustained the American parochial school system.”

Even with the recognition of the contribution of so many religious over the years, this language of replacement can lead to resentment and misunderstanding — especially by those who consider themselves replaced. It lends itself to a dualism, an either/or, and even competitive view of the Brother/Partner roles.

Fear of being replaced makes some Brothers want to hold on to the appositive even more. In highlighting the contribution of Partners, there is no need to talk “replacement.”

Some of these considerations over the years have encouraged older Lasallians — especially some Brothers — to abandon their effort to accommodate to unrelenting change in favor of wanting the safety and security of some distant day in the past. They forget that all creation myths begin with chaos, crisis and pain before something new emerges. They wish for the Lasallian family to be as it was in 1958. They suffer from what Richard Rohr calls “regressive restoration of persona.” Riding a bike or car into the rising sun in early morning can be blinding, but one can have total clarity looking in the rear view mirror.

Over the past 50+ years, God has spoken in the events of our time and has lead us into that sacred chaos that has only one way out — into a new future unknown to any of us today.

We, like the Israelites in the desert, cannot return to Egypt. We must look forward to whatever God has in store for us. We must embrace the future with open arms.