Skip to main content

Footnotes--Chapter One

1.    Brother Jean Baptiste, The Life of Marcellin J. B. Champagnat, p. 4.
2.    Napoleon I, through political expediency negotiated the Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VI. Through this treaty the dioceses of France were reorganized and each was given the right to conduct schools. In the reorganization the diocese of Le Puy, where Marlhes was situated, was incorporated in the archdiocese of Lyons.
3.    Ibid., p. 8.
4.    Ibid., p. 9.
5.    The advanced students at the seminary followed courses in Latin, the others followed those in French.
6.    Ibid., p. 29.
7.    Marist Brothers, The Centennial Book, _1817-1917, Part I, p. 21.
8.    Brother Albert, Father Champagnat, One of the Great Christian Educators of the Nineteenth Century, (Unpublished Master's Dissertation Fordham University, 1940). 
9.    When the brothers entered a town they either replaced a lay teacher or founded a town school.
10.    The people of this area often made nails during the winter months.
11.    Brother Jean Baptiste, op. cit., p. 122.
12.    There were twenty-two others teaching in the schools.
13.    It included the promise to practice the virtues of poverty and chastity. These were adopted as vows in 1903 according to the wishes of Vatican authorities. A special vow, t hat of stability was introduced in 1855 for professed brothers pledging loyalty to the Institute.
14.    Father Champagnat traveled a great deal to other schools to study methods used. He chose to follow the ideal set by St. John Baptiste de la Salle, founder of the Christian Brothers of the Schools. While visiting Marist Schools he gave conferences on methods.
15.    Brother Albert, OP. cit., p. 25.
16.    Circulaires, 1817-1917, Vol. 10 p. 7.
17.    The Marist Sisters were founded by rather Jean Colin in 1845.
18.    Brother Jean Baptiste, op. cit., p. 240.
19.    The title of Superior General was adopted in 1854 when the brothers were given their autonomy from the Society of Mary.
20.    The Centennial Book of the Marist Brothers, 1817-1917, book I, p. 21.
21.    The remains of the founder were exhumed in 1889 and encased in a tomb in the Notre Dame de l'Hermitage chapel. In 1955 his remains were transferred to a special wing of the chapel that was financed by Marist students.
22.    Mergers of small congregations with the Marist Brothers continue to this day. On January 13, 1956 the Sacred Congregation of Religious approved the union of the Brothers of St. Peter Claver. These brothers had been founded by Bishop Whelan of Owerii, Nigeria in 1948. The expansion of the congregation alarmed the Bishop in 1955. There were 23 brothers and 30 novices and the growth of the order looked very promising. The Bishop asked the Marist Brothers of the Province of England and Ireland to study the merger of his congregation with theirs. This was done on January 9, 1957: Bulletin of Studies, Vol. 48 (Dec. 1956), pp. 102-104. Two years later the Holy See approved the union of the Brothers of St. Francis Regis to the Marist Brothers. The congregation which had been founded by Father Maxim de Bussy, S.J., at Roche-Arnaud, France in 1850 found itself close to extinction by 1957. There were aged brothers in Canada and in Roche-Arnaud, France. In 1959 the Canadian brothers were united with the Province of Levis and the French contingent with the Province of Notre Dame de l'Hermitage: Bulletin de l'Institut, Vol. 50 (April 1960), pp. 91-96.
23.    Brother Zephiriny, "Little Brothers of Mary," Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 6 (1911), p. 182.
24.    Brother Albert, op. cit., p. 19.
25.    Loc. cit.
26.    Florence Gilmore, Martyr of Futuna, p. 189.
27.    Other martyrs of the Marist Congregation include eight brothers during the Boxer rebellion in China, 192 Spanish brothers were killed by the communists during the Spanish Civil War and Chinese brothers who have paid the supreme price when the communists overran the China mainland in the early fifties.
28.    St. Genis Laval Archives.
29.    Circulaires, 1817-1917, Vol. 1 p. 220.
30.    Ibid., p. 22.

All the dioceses of the world enter into my thoughts. When the respective bishops will call on us, we will hasten to come to their aid and to always consider ourselves most humble and most obedient servants. (Translation mine) .

. . . We would send some (brothers) to America with pleasure t o implement the zeal of the good missionaries, if it were possible. I hope that Divine Providence will eliminate the difficulties and will provide the means once the time and the moment when the Father has destined that His Holy Will be done. (Translation mine).
31.    Ibid. , p. 221.
32.    See Appendix A.
33.    See Appendix J.
 

Marist CollegeMarist Archives & Special Collections | Contact Us  | Acknowledgements