Thanks to A Catholic Blog for Lovers (Most Pious Blog 2004!) for pointing out this Daily News article about The Passion of The Christ that mentions the good brothers at Chaminade and Kellenberg here.

"It's a meditation on our own inhumanity to each other and how this doesn't destroy God's love," said the Rev. Philip Eichner.

Eichner heads up Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, L.I., where more than 1,000 upperclassmen plan to go on a 2-mile "pilgrimage" to see the movie on Ash Wednesday.

Eichner, who saw a cut of the movie last summer, thought it was a powerful spiritual statement, despite the violence. "We want our students to see that redemption," he said."

"Brother Thomas Cleary, dean of students at Chaminade High School in Mineola, L.I., said his students had read all about the film and were eager to see it.

About 50 members of the school's Catholic League chapter will go with faculty to see the movie, and Cleary expects the movie will be a hot topic of discussion during one of the school's retreats scheduled for Ash Wednesday."

Fr. Eichner was the president of Chaminade when I attended the school, and Brother Cleary, who graduated a couple of years ahead of me, was in college when I was there. They are Marianists of the Province of Meribah which was formed in the 1970's by some Marianists of the Province of New York. The community has flourished since then. If anything I write on this blog is good it is due to the education I received from the brothers, and anything bad is my own fault.