A lamellar pillared mesoporous metal silicate composition, wherein the metal is present in place of some of the silicon in the silicate and capable of undergoing a change of oxidation number in an oxidation or reduction reaction with an organic molecule having a kinetic diameter greater than 6 Å, the composition directly prepared by a neutral self-assembly method which comprises reacting a neutral bipolar diamine template and neutral inorganic oxide precursors in the presence of hydrolyzing agent as a solvent and optionally with a co-solvent with the hydrolyzing agent to form a reaction product, aging of the reaction mixture at reaction conditions which form the crystalline pillared lamellar metal silicate and removing of the template, the hydrolyzing agent and optional co-solvent, wherein the pillared lamellar silicate composition exhibits a lamellar x-ray diffraction pattern selected from the group consisting of FIGS. 2, 4, 10, 11 and 12, and having N2 adsorption-desorption isotherm and Horvath Kawazoe pore distribution as shown in FIG. 13.