HE AIN’T HEAVY, HE’S A Brother
Brother Donald Mouton graduated from St. Michael’s College in 1957. He holds a doctorate in sacred theology from the Catholic University of Paris. Mouton was a professor at the College of Santa Fe from 1971 to 2009, serving as president from 1982 through 1986. He taught at Santa Fe University of Art and Design until 2017, and now teaches at St. Michael’s High School.
Pasatiempo: Why do people think the College of Santa Fe became a secular school?
Brother Donald Mouton: In the 1960s, Brother Luke Roney [who was president at the time] said that if this college was going to survive, we had to get some influential lay people on the board of trustees. We had five or six brothers who lived in Louisiana. Brother Luke needed help from local people to help us financially and otherwise. He named a few lay people to the board — and then you had people saying we were becoming secular. It grew to where a majority of the board were lay people instead of brothers. But it always remained Catholic. The major religious services on campus were Catholic. We always had Mass. We upheld the basic Christian Brothers values to the end. Pasa: What are Christian Brothers values?
Mouton: In 17th-century France, the most neglected segment of society were young boys. Girls were pretty well taken care of by nuns. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle said these boys are the neglected ones, and they have a right to salvation — now and in the hereafter. These boys are lonely, they’re idle, they fall into evil ways. They have no sense of dignity, no hope for the future, no dreams. So he offered them education. One of the things that inspired the brothers in the early days was need. There was a need when St. Michael’s started. There was a need when we started the college in 1947 — there was no four-year college in the state capital. The driving force in the Lasallian tradition is finding the need. And sometimes the need isn’t financial, but psychological.
Pasa: How did the gradual decrease in Brothers and increase in lay faculty affect the college’s budget?
Mouton: When I first got to the college there were 25 brothers. All we had was what was needed for room and board. We had no salaries. Then Brother Luke said we better build salaries into the budget so that as we start losing brothers and replacing them with lay people, we won’t get taken by surprise. He started a fair-market listing on the books of salaries for the brothers. We didn’t receive the salaries. It was all on paper. The brothers were giving about $250,000 a year to the college; over the years, that amounted to several million dollars. But once we were replaced with lay people, the money did not go to the college anymore. And salaries continued to increase.
Pasa: How do you see the role of the Catholic church in the classroom?
Mouton: One of the first things I say to students is that school is not a revival tent. It’s not a church. We’re here to think. Hopefully, our thinking will help us pray better and live better, but this is where we do our thinking.