15th May FEAST OF ST. JOHN BAPTIST DE LA SALLE

Founder of Brothers of Christian Schools and Patron Saint of Teachers
Fratres Scholarum Christianarum (FSC)
The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools (also known as the Christian Brothers, the Lasallian Brothers, the French Christian Brothers, or the De La Salle Brothers; Latin: Fratres Scholarum Christianarum) is a Roman Catholic religious teaching order, founded by French Priest Saint Jean Baptiste De La Salle
De La Salle was a canon of the cathedral of Rheims, France, and came from a wealthy family. He gradually became involved with a committed lay man, Adrian Nyel, who began setting up free schools where the children of the working class and the poor could learn reading, writing and arithmetic. They would also receive religious instruction and other training appropriate for forming good Christian citizens. Gradually, De La Salle committed himself more and more, without really realizing it, until he found himself taking on this work fulltime.
He trained and organized a group of men to live in community and conduct the schools. He is credited with establishing a regimen of education which emphasized the good of the student, banning corporal punishment from their institutions. The founding of the order is generally dated to 1680. It was the first religious community of men in the Roman Catholic Church not to include clergy, the Institute being comprised solely of lay brothers. At one point, John-Baptiste De La Salle had one brother, Henri L’Heureux, studied for the priesthood, with the intention of having him take over the supervision of the Institute. However, Bro. Henri soon became ill and died unexpectedly. Jean-Baptiste took this as a sign from God that the order should remain as a society of lay brothers. He determined that his Brothers would be older brothers to those they taught and brothers to one another.
The institute underwent two periods of upheaval in France. The first during the French Revolution when schools were closed and some Brothers lost their lives. By 1805 Napoleon Bonaparte restored the institute in France which began a period of rapid growth for the Brothers. By 1810, the institute had 160 Brothers working in France and Italy; 90 years later by the end of the century, the institute had The second period of upheaval began in 1904 when France began to enact a series of “secularization laws.” These laws essentially expelled most Catholic religious from France and forced the closing of schools. Brothers left France to continue work overseas, notably in Belgium, Canada, and Spain as well as Argentina, Ecuador, Egypt, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, North Africa, and Australia.
Today the Order runs schools more than 450 schools in 82 different countries, in both developed and developing nations, with more than 900,000 students in their schools.
The community is headed by a Superior General with the assistance of a General Council. As of 2024, the Superior General is Brother Armin Altamirano Luistro FSC,
From 1882 until 1989, a non-profit arm of the order ran a winery in the Napa Valley at Greystone Cellars near St. Helena, California. Most famous for Christian Brothers Brandy, the operation and rights to the name were sold to Heublein, Inc. in 1989.
In 1981 the order started an ethical or socially responsible investment service for Catholic organizations. The service attempts to use its shareholdings to influence the way the companies in which it has invested operate.
La Sallian schools and institutions usually incorporate the Signum
Fidei as a mark of their heritage.

In Sri Lanka there had been sixteen schools functoning under the administrations of the De La Salle Brothers. Unfortunately in 1960 a number of these good schools were forcefully taken over by the Government and presently finding it difficult to keep up to their conditions and most of the students of these vested schools are deprived of proper education. De La salle Institutions in Sri Lanka:1. St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena
2. St Mary’s School Negombo (Gvt.)
3. St. Joseph’s College, Grandpass
4. De La Salle College, Mutwal
5. St Joseph’s College Bandarawela (Gvt.)
6. St Mary’s College Pettah (Gvt.)
7. St Xavier’s College N’Eliya (Gvt.)
8. St. Sebastian’s College, Moratuwa
9. St Lucia’s School, Kotahena.(Gvt)
10. St. Mary’s College, Chilaw
11. De Mazenod College, Kandana
12. St Bede’s College Badulla (Gvt.)
13. St. Anne’s College, Kurunegala
14. St. Anthony’s College, Wattala
15. St. Xavier’s Boys’ College, Mannar (Gvt)
16. St Andrew’s College Puttalam (Gvt.)
17. Diyagala Boys’ Town, Ragama (Vocational Training)
18. De La Salle English School, Mannar (New)