Ignatius Rice grew up at a time when Catholic education was banned in Ireland. His own schooling was therefore very limited. He worked for his prosperous merchant uncle in Waterford, and in 1785 inherited the business. He also joined a charitable organisation that visited the sick. About the same time he married, but the marriage was short-lived. His wife died in childbirth after an accident in 1789, leaving Edmund with the care of a daughter with a disability.
He pondered a religious vocation but was advised to care for the education of poor children. Education, though now open to Catholic children, was fee-paying. In 1802 he sold his business and founded a free school for street kids. They were so difficult to manage that the teachers resigned. Edmund Rice then focused on training teachers who were formed in prayer and were ready to teach without pay. He wanted the school to be free of corporal punishment. He later opened another school and obtained a licence for the schools which fed and clothed as well as taught the boys. In 1808 he and seven teachers took vows under the rule of the local Bishop, and the congregation called the Presentation Brothers trained teachers and spread into other parts of Ireland.
As the number of schools grew, this structure was restrictive because it impeded moving Brothers across diocesan boundaries. He sought Rome’s approval to form a religious Congregation with vows and a Superior General. In 1820 the new congregation, the Christian Brothers was formed, and soon spread through Ireland and beyond. The Presentation Brothers were given the choice to remain as a local congregation, and many in Cork decided to do so.
In 1822 Edmund Rice was made Superior General of the Christian Brothers at a divided gathering of the Brothers. He continued in this position until 1838, when he resigned because of ill health.
The reputation of the Christian Brothers has suffered greatly through the recent exposure of sexual abuse of children in their institutions, as in other Catholic settings, and also through their reliance on corporal punishment to enforce discipline and to encourage learning. Nothing can be said to excuse the sexual abuse among the Brothers and in Catholic institutions at large. The legacy of Edmund Rice, however, needs to be set within the context of his day. He disapproved of corporal punishment, and the issue divided the early Congregation. It was also an accepted part of school discipline in English private schools as also in schools and homes more generally, and could easily become brutal. The Brothers, who began their schools to offer free education to the poor in a world where only the wealthy could afford it, particularly sought out children who were undisciplined and from broken families. Their education helped boys to find work in the public service and elsewhere. They helped shape the Ireland and the Catholic world that has rightly rejected the punitive school culture for children today.
Bl Edmund Ignatius Rice
1 June 1762-29 August 1844
Feast Day: 5 May