Marist Brothers


The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic religious institute of brothers. In 1817, Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from France, founded the Marist Brothers with the goal of educating young people, especially those most neglected. While most of the brothers minister in school settings, others work with young people in parishes, religious retreats, spiritual accompaniment, at-risk youth settings, young adult ministry, and overseas missions. Since the 2010s, several instances of sexual abuse within Marist-run institutions have been reported in Chile, Australia, and New Zealand.

History

St. Marcellin Champagnat decided to start an institute of consecrated brothers in the Marist tradition, building schools for the underprivileged where they might learn to become "Good Christians and Good people". The decision was inspired by an event, when as a parish priest he was called to administer the last rites to a dying boy named Jean Baptiste Montagne. Trying to lead the boy through his last moments in prayer, Marcellin was struck by the fact that the young man had no gauge of Christianity or prayer. From that moment, Champagnat decided to start training brothers to meet the faith needs of the young people of France.
On January 2, 1817, the 23-year-old Jean Marie Granjon and Jean Baptist Audras, fourteen and a half years of age, moved into the small house that Fr. Champagnat had rented for them in La Valla and which became the first Marist Brothers community. Their day consisted of prayer, work and study; their manual work was to make nails, an activity that helped to pay expenses. Marcellin taught them reading and writing, and he looked after their formation as religious educators. Other young men joined the undertaking, among them Gabriel Rivat who, as Brother François, would later become the Brothers' first Superior General.
As a Marist priest, Champagnat had a particular affinity for the Blessed Virgin Mary, so upon conception of the idea of Marist Brothers, Champagnat chose to call his brothers Petits Frères de Marie, emphasising the meekness and humbleness he wished them to pursue, and seeking their consecration to her as an exemplar of fidelity to Christ. In 1863, 23 years after Champagnat's death, the Marist Brothers institute received the approbation of the Holy See, whereupon the order received the title of Fratres Maristae a Scholis, hence the post-nominal letters of FMS. They received a particular mandate to follow the Marist Fathers to the Pacific and administer to the new colonies of the Pacific nations and Australia. This harkens back to a Marist legend about Champagnat.
A favourite maxim of St. Marcellin was that he wanted "to make Jesus known and loved" throughout the world, and to demonstrate he would run a needle through an apple as an example of how he wanted the message of "Ad Jesum per Mariam" or "To Jesus through Mary" to cross the globe. The end of the needle came out in what would be the equivalent of the Pacific in relation to France where he inserted the needle, and so thus the Marist Brothers have a presence throughout the Pacific, including in Australia and New Zealand.

International provinces

The Marist Brothers are involved in educational work throughout the world and now conduct primary, secondary and higher education schools, academies, industrial schools, orphanages and retreat houses in 79 countries on five continents: Europe, Africa, Americas, Asia, and Oceania.
From their roots in Lyon, the Brothers today have spread across the globe. Over their 200-year history, Marist Brothers have had ministries in over 100 different nations. There are approximately 2,500 brothers in 79 countries on 5 continents, working directly and sharing their mission and spirituality with more than 72,000 lay Marists, and together educating close to 654,000 children and young people.
Br. Ernesto Sánchez Barba, F.M.S., is the current Superior General of the Marist Brothers,he was elected during the XXII General Chapter in Rionegro, Colombia, on 3 October 2017 Together with the Vicar General and a General Council, it is his responsibility to guide the growth, mission, and administration of the Institute's ministries worldwide. This leadership team is based at the General House in Rome, which serves as the central administrative and spiritual hub for the Marist Brothers.
The institute is divided into two main types of administrative units: Provinces – Larger regions, each overseen by a Provincial, who governs in the name of the Superior General. Provincials are responsible for the pastoral care of the Brothers and the oversight of Marist ministries within their territory and the Districts – Smaller units, often geographically or numerically limited missions, that could be dependent on a bigger Province or semi-autonomous. These are typically led by a District Leader, with similar responsibilities, but in a smaller scale. The number of provinces is actually 23 and districts are 3.

Asia

  • Mission Ad Gentes Marist District of Asia
  • Province of East Asia.
  • Province of South Asia.

    Oceania

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.
Marist Brothers arrived in Australia in 1872, where they opened their first school at The Rocks, New South Wales. 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 of Melbourne and Sydney recombined in 2012. The number of Marist Brothers in Australian is diminishing and very few continue to teach in the Marist schools, which are now led and staffed predominantly by lay teachers; however, such schools are described as being in the "Marist tradition" as they continue to follow the educational principles of the Marist Brothers.
Since 2022, Oceania is aggregated into one province:
The Marist mission originated in Europe, particularly in France, which Marcellin Champagnat called home. A number of schools, universities, youth ministries and social works are done by the Marists in this area. The administration of European Marists is overseen by the provinces of:
  • Province of Compostela
  • Province of West Central Europe
  • Province of Iberia
  • Province de l'Hermitage
  • Mediterranean Province
In Scotland, Celtic Football Club was formed at a meeting in St. Mary's church hall in Glasgow, by Marist Brother Walfrid on November 6, 1887. The stated purpose, according to the official club records, was "to alleviate poverty in Glasgow's East End parishes". The charity established by Brother Walfrid was named 'The Poor Children's Dinner Table'.

North America

The North American provinces are particularly based around secondary and tertiary education. The North American provinces are:
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
  • Province of Cruz del Sur
  • Province of Central Mexico
  • Province of Western Mexico
  • Province of the Northern Andes
  • Province of Santa Maria of the Andes

    Africa

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:

Marist statement about abuse

In 2017, the Marist Brothers released a statement to survivors and victims of abuse. It was issued by the 22nd General Chapter and stated that "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".
Then the institution fought against adequate compensation measures for survivors of the abuse.
The Marist Brothers then offered less in compensation to Fijian survivors, than they had in New Zealand, leading to accusations of racism.

Australian royal commission

From June 2014, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, initiated as a royal commission of inquiry by the Australian Government and supported by all of its state governments, began investigating the response of Marist Brothers to allegations of child sexual abuse in schools in the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and Queensland. 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 commission.
In 2017, the commission published a 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 relating to abuse. Included in the report was a 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". In many cases the Commission heard of "the minimisation of allegations of child sexual abuse". 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. As of 2017, compensation payments made totaled approximately $AUD2.7 million.
In March 2015, a former Marist Brother was arrested over a number of sex offences allegedly committed at St Joseph's College in and St Gregory's College in Campbelltown in the 1980s.
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.
Other cases, documented in the report, included those related to Brother Chute who, in 2008, was convicted of 19 child sex offences against six of his former students during the period 1985 to 1989. 48 claims had been made of abuse that occurred from 1959 to 1990 at 6 different schools, while 40 students at Marist College Canberra laid complaints during the period 1976 to 1990. The Marist Brothers did not report any allegations of child sexual abuse to the police in the period 1962 to 1993.
Separately, in August 1996, Brother Gregory Sutton pleaded guilty to a total of 67 child sex offences in relation to 15 students at schools in New South Wales. Sutton had taught at six Marist schools between 1970 and 1986 and there were complaints about the abuse of 27 children made against him during this period. Sutton faced the courts again in Canberra in 2017, when he was given a suspended sentence after sexually assaulting two boys in Canberra in the 1980s.
In March 2025, Sutton received a further 15 months suspended sentence for sexually abusing a boy at a school in Innisfail, Queensland, between 1973 and 1975.
In September 2018, Australian Marist Brother Gerard McNamara, 80, was sentenced to nine months in prison for molesting five boys at St Paul's Catholic College, where he served as principal between 1970 and 1975. He had molested one of these boy 30 times. In May 2020, McNamara began serving a second stint in prison after pleading guilty to indecent assault of more than 15 male students between 1970 and 1975. This time, he received a sentence of 35 months in prison, with 28 months suspended. Since his first sex abuse conviction in June 2006, which resulted in a suspended prison sentence, McNamara 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.