Edmund Rice Research Paper

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In the profound and extensive history of Catholic education, Edmund Ignatius Rice stood out among the crowd, like a pearl resting on a crown. Edmund Ignatius Rice was a Roman Catholic missionary and educationalist. He was born on 1 June 1762 in Callan, County Kilkenny, Ireland and died on 29 August 1844 in Waterford, County Waterford, Ireland (“Edmund Ignatius Rice.”). Edmund Rice was born in a prosperous “Catholic tenant farmer family” to Robert and Margaret Rice (“May 5 - Bl Edmund Ignatius Rice (1762-1844).”). He was the fourth of seven brothers and also had two stepsisters in the family. During that time, Catholics faced severe oppression under Penal Laws, which were “a series of laws imposed in an attempt to force Irish Roman Catholic …show more content…

He was in a short period of depression because his first attempt in helping the poor failed too soon. However, as a man who never gave up and always sought for solutions to the problem, he quickly realized the reality that temporary commitment to a full-time problem was not a proper solution. What he needed was not someone who was driven by money, but passionate young people with the same determination and persistence to help the people in need and to improve the society. He began to invite young men to collaborate with him permanently in his work and education. They focused on the establishment of permanent school and aiding poor children to receive fundamental education. In 1808, Edmund Rice and his companions devoted their total commitment to their determination of persisting in further education for the poor. They took vows under the presence of a local bishop, forming the Society of the Presentation. With God’s guidance and presence, his school prospered and the community changed with a measurable rate. He became “Brother Ignatius” named after the founder of the Jesuits. His work soon spread among Waterford and then to the other parts of the country where the local bishops was impressed at how their work had changed their community. He wanted to spread the benefits and the wish of the Lord to the world. In 1920, with the blessing of Pope Pius VLL, the majority of the brothers “under Edmund as Superior General: organized themselves into “a pontifical congregation: the Congregation of Christian Brothers” (“May 5 - Bl Edmund Ignatius Rice (1762-1844).”). The institution spread its efforts not only in Ireland but also wherever God directed it to. They went to wherever the need of education was the greatest. A minority retained the Presentation name as a distinctive group subject to the Bishop of Cork and evolved into today’s Presentation Brothers. Edmund

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