The District of San Francisco and
the Lasallian Heritage

The District of San Francisco is part of the International Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools – commonly known as the De La Salle Christian Brothers, or Christian Brothers. The District, founded in San Francisco in 1868, shares in the Institute’s mission of conducting schools and cooperating in creating educational communities inspired by the vision and traditions of Saint John Baptist de La Salle, founder of the Christian Brothers. Our schools are Catholic schools, based on core principles that characterize them as uniquely Lasallian. Their educational policies are centered on the young, designed to prepare them to take their place in society, and characterized by the determination to make the means of salvation available through a quality education and by an explicit proclamation of Jesus Christ.

The District of San Francisco includes the entire West Coast of the United States. In the province, the Brothers conduct Saint Mary’s College of California, nine high schools, one elementary school, four community-based educational centers for young people and adults, a retreat and conference center, a recovery facility for adult victims of substance abuse, and a home for adolescents who are wards of the court. In the 1999-2000 school year, nearly 9,000 students, more than half of them Catholic, attend District schools (total includes only undergraduates at Saint Mary’s College). Recognizing an interdependence with other districts and regions of the Institute, the District has developed partnerships with Brothers and Lasallians in other parts of the world, particularly in Asia and Africa, through the assignment of Brothers to ministries outside the District, providing the services of Lasallian Partners, and sharing financial resources and expertise. 

Moved by the plight of the poor who seemed so "far from salvation" either in this world or the next, he determined to put his own talents, resources, and advanced education at the service of the children "often left to themselves and badly brought up." To be still more effective, he abandoned his family home, moved into a residence together with the teachers, renounced his wealth and his position as Canon of the Reims Cathedral, and so formed the community that became known as the Brothers of the Christian Schools.

His enterprise met opposition from the ecclesiastical authorities who resisted the creation of a new form of religious life – "lay religious" Brothers, not clerics – a community of consecrated laymen to conduct gratuitous schools "together and by association". The educational establishment resented his innovative methods and his insistence on free schools for all, regardless of whether they could afford to pay. With profound faith and trust in God, De La Salle acted, step by step, in response to the needs of the schools, the teachers, and the students as he perceived God wanted him to act.

John Baptist de La Salle died at Saint Yon near Rouen early on Good Friday 1719, only weeks before his 68^th birthday. He was canonized a Saint in the Catholic Church on May 24, 1900, and proclaimed Patron Saint of Christian Teachers on May 15, 1950.

The De La Salle Christian Brothers (officially, the Brothers of the Christian Schools – Fratres Scholarum Christianarum – FSC) is the largest order of religious Brothers in the Roman Catholic Church, dedicated exclusively to education, particularly of the poor and disadvantaged. For years, dedicated lay women and men and other religious have worked alongside the Brothers in their schools and apostolic works. In this shared mission, Partners today participate in the work of the District of San Francisco at every level.

In 1998, the number of Christian Brothers worldwide totaled 6,694. Brothers worked with 64,687 Partners and 784,061 students in 904 educational institutions in 87 countries, from El Salvador to the Philippines, from Greece to South Africa. In the United States alone in 1998, there were 969 Brothers. Of these, a total of 679 Brothers worked with 3,123 Partners and 69,311 students in nearly 100 educational institutions. (Touching the Hearts of Students by Br. George Van Grieken, FSC, 1999)

Lasallian schools – as they have come to be known – are Lasallian because they are based on the teachings and vision of De La Salle. They are transparently Catholic, in order to be, as the Rule of the Brothers states, signs of the kingdom and means of salvation. Their Christian identity involves more than courses of religious instruction and pastoral programs. The Christian dimension permeates and shapes every aspect of school life: tone, atmosphere, spirit, signs, symbols, relationships, curriculum, requirements, policies, regulations. As Catholic schools, they are called to propose – but in no way to impose – Jesus Christ, accepting with love and respect all the young people entrusted to their care, whatever their religious beliefs. An institution can legitimately call itself Lasallian only if it is unambiguously Christian. (Lasallian Schools Today, Br. John Johnston, FSC, Superior General, 1994)

Seven Hallmarks of A Lasallian School
Brother John Johnston, FSC, Superior General, 1994

Lasallian schools are Christian schools, but schools in which a certain number of specific characteristics are given prominence. The Founder did not leave us a definite list of these characteristics, but the seven that follow correspond to the priorities which De La Salle considered essential to the early Christian Schools. In practice, these seven are interrelated. It is the integration of these characteristics that gives the school its Lasallian identity.