Notes on "The Price of Freedom"

...Uncovering the past on behalf of the future...
Denis McLaughlin, The Price of Freedom, David Lovell Publishing, Melbourne, 2007
– a review by Paul Smith


I have never used the phrase tour de force about anything except in jest – until now. Denis McLaughlin’s The Price of Freedom deserves to be described thus. In the thoroughness of its research, and the application of the historical method; in the scope of the challenge that it represents to a way of thinking about past events and present priorities; in the compassion that motivates it and the frankness of its statements about certain people and events, this book is, at the same time, breath taking and a breath of fresh air.


Pope John XXIII, when asked about the agenda for his papacy, famously walked to a window, opened it and said: To let some fresh air into the church. In Hebrew, the word for spirit is the same as the word for a strong gust of wind. In Catholic thinking that same word is used for the Holy Spirit. Denis McLaughlin takes one’s breath away not by merely opening a window, but ripping away the planks that have boarded it up for most of its existence. That window is the life of Edmund Rice, through which we can see the Kingdom of God; and through which rushes the breath of fresh air, the ruah that replaces the stale air that has been knocked out of us by the force of McLaughlin’s words.


Edmund Rice emerges from this book not only as a startlingly successful business man, but, to put it colloquially, a bloke with street cred, capable of sharing his faith and material prosperity with street kids willing to seek a better life. He emerges as a devoted husband and father who made life choices that would be regarded as exemplary today, let alone in the eighteenth century. Indeed, his experience as a father is portrayed as the defining mark of his vocation. Rice is shown to have been not just a pious man, but, more importantly, a man whose faith produced practical, socially significant results – a man who put his money where his mouth was. Starting with the provision of meals, clothes and instruction tailored to the personal needs of youths he welcomed into his home, to the very substantial donation of funds to the Presentation Sisters, Rice ultimately applied the whole of a personal fortune, estimated at 50,000 Irish pounds, to the education of youth, not only in Ireland, but in England, Australia and, in time, every English Speaking country in the world. Furthermore, he inspired others to do likewise. Many of the first generation of his congregation were men of means who contributed their wealth and talent to the same enterprise. Rice was not a man with a classical education and the leisure to articulate an educational philosophy. Yet his pedagogical priorities and practices – inspired, McLaughlin argues, by his experience as a father – would withstand the most critical scrutiny today: which raises the question. Why are those who came after him known for less well regarded methods?


Up to this point, McLaughlin’s book is the breath of fresh air alluded to earlier. It is when he begins to answer the foregoing question that it becomes breath taking. It is beyond my ability to summarise the bastardy (McLaughlin’s word) of what happened when Edmund Rice relinquished the leadership of his congregation. Suffice to say that he was crucified by those who wrested (my word) control, and his enterprise subverted by issues of power – rather like HMC, it might be argued, when She fell into the hands of people less humane, because less divinely inspired, than Jesus.


For me, the most surprising thing about the book was that, despite my having spent two years in a Christian Brothers Juniorate and Novitiate, I knew absolutely nothing of the events that McLaughlin catalogues in chapters 6 - 8. In one sense the most surprising thing about the book ought to be that those events took place at all. Ought to be, only from a Panglossian point of view, however, for as the pious are quick to point out: No one should expect us to get it right all the time. We are not perfect. We have feet of clay! Indeed. But having feet of clay is one thing: gilding them to disguise the truth is another. And that is the most bitterly received point that McLaughlin makes in his book. Not only was Edmund Rice’s enterprise turned into something alien to his intention; but self serving ideological perspectives ensured that that this would be hidden from view. And this goes to the “myth busting” purpose of McLaughlin’s book.


I use the term “myth busting” advisedly. McLaughlin himself alludes to the two senses of the word myth – the underlying vision of an enterprise (charism?); and the deceitful misrepresentation of reality. McLaughlin’s purpose is to expose both – Rice’s intention and achievement; and the way in which the vicious grab for power in the founder’s own life time has reverberated into present practice and thinking. In doing so McLaughlin is by no means purporting to have arrived at the truth. He repeatedly avers the need for caution when considering the conclusions he has arrived at, and engages in self critical analysis of the research program he is undertaking. Nor is he pretending that his work is unprecedented. As I read – dutifully breaking the flow of the story by looking at and, where necessary, reading every foot note – what became clear was not just the meticulous thoroughness of his research, but the identities of the “giants on whose shoulders he stands” in producing this work. What rescues the tragic litany of subversion and misrepresentation from a damnable story to one of breath taking hope is the record of courageous questioning by members of the congregation itself, and the uncovering of much that was deliberately disguised. McLaughlin ends the book by proposing a means of recovering the Ricean charism and restoring Ricean Education to its intended role of liberation in the contemporary world.


This book is not just about a man whose achievement was diminished by some who came after him. It is about the way the world works. A few good men get things done. Lesser men get in the way. Things bog down and ossify. Yet people and organisations experience The Resurrection. Rice constantly advised people that all things turn out for the better. It sounds Panglossian – especially in the light of what happened to him and his work. But people like Rice earn the right to be believed precisely because they endure injustice to the death.


The most important contribution of this book is not the past which it illuminates – as vital and necessary as that is for the future – but the very future that it points to. McLaughlin says of Rice in Chapter 1:
“Perhaps what contributed to his call to action was the realisation that some of his success may have been at the expense of his countrymen. His truly revolutionary response was not simply educating the poor, but the provision of a special type of education that challenges the status quo which justified and protected class systems that legitimised the Irish abuse of their own.” (p 26)


Rice did not confine his efforts to educating children, but also addressed the needs of parents – as parents and as members of a community – partly as a result of which, the future of his country changed, from one in which people were subjects, to one in which they became citizens. At a time when, despite the catastrophic prospects of climate change, powerful people decree that measures to reduce its effects must not diminish economic growth, education that produces revolutionary outcomes is indeed what is needed, not just for children, but adults as well. Who will act on behalf of the ‘dear little ones’ – the many species on their way to extinction?