The Cultural and Pedagogical Work of Brother Raphaël-Louis Rafiringa (1856-1919)

ABSTRACT

Brother Raphaël-Louis Rafiringa, a great but unfortunately little known Brother of the Christian Schools, died just over a century ago during the Spanish Flu epidemic. This article, which is being published in the English-language during the current pandemic, will attempt to give some sense of the life and achievements of this extraordinary Lasallian educator; and it will unfold in a number of brief sections: (1) son of a blacksmith; (2) respected leader; (3) Christian educator; (4) religious academician; (5) literary author; (6) the Malagasy Academy; (7) pioneer of inculturation in the Malagasy cultural milieu; (8) “missionary” in a Malagasy context; (9) Lasallian pioneer of a human and Christian education in Madagascar; (10) initiator of a pedagogy modeling culture and faith; and (11) precursor of the ecumenical movement in the Malagasy Church.

Full Text:

The Cultural and Pedagogical Work of Brother Raphaël-Louis Rafiringa (1856-1919)

Keywords: leader, pioneer, academician, education, Madagascar, inculturation, literary work, community, Malagasy Academy, faith, pedagogy, missionaries, laypeople