Although my past comments might make you think the Marianists at Chaminade High School are rather traditionalist, they are not. The music at the monthly masses in high school was typically Here I Am Lord, and Sing to the Mountains Sing to the Sea. When sung by a choir they can be fine hymns although I now wish they would have done some more traditionalist stuff. But I don’t think I would have cared or noticed at the time. There was no Latin at the Masses that I can remember and since we were in the auditorium we stood throughout the Eucharistic Prayer. But the Masses were some of the most reverent I have ever seen and the preaching was good. I guess I should mention some background (I don’t know all the details): In the mid 70’s the Marianists at Chaminade broke away from the New York province to which they had always belonged. This was done with Vatican approval and assistance. I don’t know the exact reason, but I suspect they did not want to have the brothers and priests go off and do different things. This is a very unique school and the Province formed, Meribah, is dedicated to education exclusively. It is a non-territorial province which is kind of unique. The deal was, they had to create a second school within 10 years which they did in 1987 (Kellenberg). In 1988 they created a middle school division at Kellenberg for 6th -8th graders, and all 7th and 8th graders study latin. They are considered “conservative” by some other religious orders and groups but this is silly. They are modern in the best sense of that word and traditional in many ways.
All of the members of the community work in the area of education, focusing on running these 2 schools. The other Marianist provinces all combined recently to form 1 province for the United States, mostly due to falling numbers of vocations. They are mostly known for the University of Dayton where Erma Bombeck graduated. (Martin Sheen went to another Chaminade High in Dayton). The community here on Long Island has benefited from the break since they continue to get vocations and also do not have the kind of corruption found in many religious communities.