Marist Brothers

Marist Brothers in the world

• Mission Ad Gentes Marist District of Asia (Thailand, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, and Philippines)
• Province of East Asia (Philippines, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan). These schools are part of this province: Maris Stella High School in Singapore, SMJK Sam Tet in Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia, Catholic High School, Malaysia in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, Catholic High School in Melaka, Malaysia, Notre Dame of Cotabato, Notre Dame of Kidapawan College, Marist School (Marikina) in Marikina City, Notre Dame of Marbel University and Notre Dame of Dadiangas University, Philippines and St. Francis Xavier's College and St. Francis Xavier's School in Hong Kong (alma mater of Bruce Lee, Sam Hui, and other celebrities)
• Province of South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka). Notable school: Maris Stella College in Negombo.

The Marist Brothers' first international missionary mandate was to the Pacific, where they accompanied Marist Fathers in evangelizing and education ministries. Today, Marist brothers own and run many technical colleges in the Central and Western Pacific, educating young men in nations ravaged by war (such as the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea).

Marist Brothers arrived in Australia in 1872, where they opened their first school at The Rocks, New South Wales.[2] There are now over 300 Brothers working with young people in schools as teachers and administrators, in retreat houses and camps for young people and in other areas of ministry. Australian Marist Brothers also serve in welfare ministries working with young adults in outreach programs in indigenous Australian communities and also in missions in nearby Papua New Guinea, Bougainville, Solomon Islands, and East Timor. Marists from Australia also serve communities in Cambodia and India. The two provinces are Melbourne (States of Victoria, WA, South Australia and Northern Territory) and Sydney (Queensland, New South Wales, ACT and Cambodia).

Oceania is divided into the following four administrative units:

• Province of Australia (Australia, Timor Leste, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu)
• District of Pacific (Fiji, Kiribati, New Zealand and Samoa)[3]

In the Oceania region, Prime Ministers of Australia, [(sir Julius Chan | Papua New Guinea)], Fiji, Samoa and Tonga were all educated by schools run Marist Brothers.

Europe is the heartland of the Marist project, centring particularly on the region of France which Marcellin Champagnat called home. Many schools, universities, youth ministries and social works are done by the Marists in this area. The administration of European Marists is done by:

• Province of Compostela (Spain, Honduras and Portugal)
• Province of West Central Europe (Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands and United Kingdom)
• Province of Iberia (Spain)
• Province de l'Hermitage (Algeria, Spain, France, Greece, Hungary and Switzerland)
• Mediterranean Province (Spain, Italy, Lebanon and Syria)

Celtic Football Club was formed at a meeting in St. Mary's church hall in Glasgow, by Marist Brother Walfrid on November 6, 1887, with the purpose stated in the official club records as "being to alleviate poverty in Glasgow's East End parishes". The charity established by Brother Walfrid was named 'The Poor Children's Dinner Table'.

The North American provinces are particularly based around secondary and tertiary education. Many American celebrities have been educated in American Marist schools, including Sean "P Diddy" Combs, David Hasselhoff, Ray Romano and many others. The North American provinces are:

• Province of Canada
• Province of the United States

In Latin America, "Maristas" are also very active in the following countries: Chile, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Peru, El Salvador, Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Venezuela and other countries as well. The largest number of brothers currently are natives from Spain and France. The Marist presence in these countries is divided into the following provinces:

• Province of Brasil Centro-Norte
• Province of Brasil Centro-Sul
• Province of Brasil Sul-Amazônia
• Province of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Cuba)
• Province of Cruz del Sur (Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay)
• Province of Central Mexico
• Province of Western Mexico (Mexico and Haiti)
• Province of the Northern Andes (Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela)
• Province of Santa Maria of the Andes (Bolivia, Chile and Peru)

Marist brothers are active in a number of African countries, including Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Kenya. Marist brothers have been martyred in Africa on many occasions for educating and protecting refugee people. The administrative groupings of Marists in Africa are:

• Province of Southern Africa (Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe)
• Province of East Central Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania)
• District of West Africa (Cameroon, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia)
• Province of Madagascar
• Province of Nigeria

The Marist Brothers released a statement to survivors and victims of abuse. It was issued by the 22nd General Chapter in 2017, and reads: “Abuse is the very antithesis of our Marist values, and undermines the very purpose of our Institute. Any abuse of children is a betrayal of the noble ideals of our founder, St Marcellin Champagnat.”

From June 2014, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, a royal commission of inquiry initiated in 2013 by the Australian Government and supported by all of its state governments,[4] began an investigation into the response of Marist Brothers to allegations of child sexual abuse in schools in the ACT, NSW and Queensland.[5] A number of expert witnesses, former students, former teachers, former principals, former and current Marist officials and clergy, and one of the clergy at the centre of the allegations gave evidence or made statements before the Royal Commission[6][7][8][9][10] In 2017, the Commission published its final report which documents significant evidence of child abuse at the hand of members of the Marist order and evidence that the response of the order systematically exacerbated the problems relatng to abuse.[11]

Compensation payments to date have totaled approximately $AUD2.7 million.[11]

Particularly concerning was the finding that “many alleged perpetrators remained in the same positions with access to children for years and sometimes decades after initial and successive allegations of child sexual abuse were raised.”[11]

In many cases the Commission heard of “the minimisation of allegations of child sexual abuse.”[11]

One of the key systematic issues that came to light was that it was typical for Brothers to move through many communities and ministries in their lifetime. In the 1960s and 1970s there were typically up to 100 transfers each year.[11]

Dr Marie Keenan, a specialist witness in public policy and therapeutic responses to crime testified that “the problem of clericalism appears to be rooted in a seminary system that introduces seminarians into a closed, secretive clerical world and into a hierarchy that is answerable only to itself.”[11]

In March 2015, a former Marist Brother was arrested over a number of sex offences allegedly committed at St Joseph's College in Hunters Hill and St Gregory's College in Campbelltown in the 1980s.[12]

In September 2016, during a Royal Commission hearing, the Brother Provincial of the Marist Brothers in Australia, Brother Peter Carroll, formally apologised to the family of Andrew Nash, whose suicide in 1974 at the age of 13 almost certainly resulted from sexual abuse by three of the order's predatory brothers – Dominic, Patrick and Romuald – and acknowledged that they had many more victims than the dozens who had come forward so far.[13]

On 2 August 1996, Brother Sutton pleaded guilty to a total of 67 child sex offences in relation to 15 students at schools in New South Wales. He taught at 6 Marist schools between 1970 and 1986 and there were complaints about the abuse of 27 children made against him during this period.[14]

In September 2018, Australian Marist Brother Gerard McNamara, 80, was sentenced to nine months in prison for molesting five boys who were aspiring athletes at St Paul's Catholic College, where served as principal, in Traralgon between 1970 and 1975.[15] He also molested one of these boy 30 times.[15] In May 2020, McNamara, who was nicknamed "The Rat," began serving his second stint in prison after pleading guilty to charges of indecent assault and one count of common assault of more than 15 male students between 1970 and 1975.[16] This time, he received a sentence of 35 months in prison, with 28 months suspended.[16] Since his first sex abuse conviction in June 2006, which resulted in a suspended prison sentence, McNamara has received three additional convictions and sentences on sex abuse charges, but was able to once again receive a suspended prison sentence following another conviction in December 2016.[16]

Marist Brother Claudius Pettit, real name Malcolm Thomas Petit, was convicted of child-sex abuse of a boy at a Wellington school in the 1990s.[17]

In June 2020, Kevin Healy (Brother Gordon), a former Marist brother, was convicted of four charges of indecency (from 1976-1977) between a man and boys aged 12 and 13, and one of indecency with a girl aged under 12.[18]

John Louis Stevenson (known as Brother Bernard) and Brother Andrew Cody of the Hato Paora Māori Boys school in Feilding were convicted of sexual offenses and jailed.[19][20]

In 2018, the Otago Daily Times noted that nine Marist brothers had been convicted of crimes against boys. These were Br. Charles Afeaki (Invercargill), Br. Kenneth Camden (Christchurch), Br. Sione Losalu (Napier), Br. Bryan McKay (Hamilton), Br. Andrew Cody (Feilding), Br. Bernard Stevenson (Fielding), Br. Bede Hampton (Masterton), Br. Patrick Bignell (Hutt Valley) and Br. Claudius Pettit (Lower Hutt).

Br. Aiden Benefield (Napier), was convicted of possessing child pornography in 2007.[21]

By March 2016, a total of 29 complaints were made against six former teachers from three Marist schools in Barcelona, with three of these teachers confessing to committing the alleged sex abuse.[22] By February 2019, the number of complaints against Barcelona Marist school teachers had increased to 43, with 12 teachers now named as suspected sex abusers.[23] By this point, however, two Barcelona Marist Brothers were criminally charged, with one being convicted and another still awaiting trial.[23] In March 2019, the trial began for the other charged Marist Brother who had yet to receive a verdict.[24]

Cases of abuses were found out in Marist Brothers facilities. Diocesan priests Cristián Precht Bañados and Miguel Ortega, another priest of the Archdiocese of Santiago, were accused of molesting boys while visiting the Brothers' facilities, including those who came to them for confession. Chilean police have investigated claims of sex abuse at many of the group's facilities.[25] Precht had previously been suspended from ministry between 2012 and 2017 after being convicted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as well. On 12 September 2018, Precht was laicized.[26] In 2012, Ortega, was also found guilty of sexually molesting boys. He was sentenced to 32 years in prison, died in 2015.[26] Precht had been incardinated in the Archdiocese of Santiago, and gained national recognition in the 1980s when he served as head of the Church’s Vicariate of Solidarity human rights group that challenged ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet to end the practice of torture in Chile.[27]

In 2017, the Chilean Marist Brothers revealed that at least 14 minors were abused by Marist Brother Abel Perez from the 1970s until 2000 at the Instituto Alonso de Ercilla and the Marcelino Champagnat schools in Chile.[28] Perez confessed the alleged abuse to his superiors in 2010, and was then transferred to Peru.[28]