Officials of a central Pennsylvania Catholic school were forced to fire the new headmaster after less than two months when it was discovered he had previously been fired by the Archdiocese of New York for writings it deemed racist.
Erie Bishop Lawrence Persico named Frank Borzellieri headmaster of DuBois Area Catholic School, a K-12 institution about 75 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, on Dec. 3, according to the school's Facebook page - except Persico and school officials believed Borzellieri's name was Mario Bella.
Monsignor Charles Kaza, the school's interim president, told WJAC-TV and the (DuBois) Courier Express that Borzellieri was fired Friday, a day after officials learned his true identity. Kaza, who serves at one of seven parishes from which the school draws its students, did not immediately return a call for comment from The Associated Press on Tuesday.
The AP could not immediately locate a phone number for Borzellieri, or any listed under the Mario Bella alias. His New York-publisher, Cultural Studies Press, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Borzellieri or on his behalf.
A spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York told the AP in August 2011 that Borzellieri was fired after two years as principal of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School, a predominantly black and Hispanic elementary school in the Bronx, for writings church officials deemed racially offensive.
That happened shortly after the New York Daily News reported that Borzellieri had written that expanding black and Hispanic populations would create a "New Dark Age."
Borzellieri was known before that for his tenure on a Queens school board in the 1990s, about which he wrote a book, "Lynched: A Conservative's Life on a New York City School Board."
The Cultural Studies Press website said the book chronicles Borzellieri's 11 years "as the only conservative and Eurocentrist on this ultra-liberal school board. In these pages, he documents how the New York City political and educational establishments tried their best to destroy his career for daring to speak the truth about the racial, cultural and educational issues that are destroying this country."
Borzellieri made headlines in 1994 for trying to ban a biography of Martin Luther King Jr. from the school district, telling Newsday at the time that King was a "hypocritical adulterer" and "a leftist hoodlum with significant Communist ties."
The Rev. Eric Rapaglia, the pastor of the Bronx parish, told the AP in 2011 that hiring Borzellieri was "mistake in judgment." The pastor said neither he nor a search committee knew about Borzellieri's political writings when they hired him. Instead, Borzellieri had good credentials, including experience in two other mostly minority schools, and no one complained about him to the archdiocese, Rapaglia said then.
Monsignor Richard Siefer, whose rectory at St. Catherine of Siena parish housed Borzellieri while he headed the Pennsylvania school, said he was on the search committee that recommended Bella be hired. Applicants were recruited through a diocesan job posting and one on a national site for Catholic educators, Siefer said.
"But I had nothing to do with the vetting process after that," he said. "Personally, I did none of that. I'm going to assume that they did that, the school board, but you know what happens when we assume."
Siefer said the search began in about August, after Persico reassigned a priest who had been the school's headmaster.
Persico referred questions to a diocesan education official, who had no immediate comment.
What do you think?
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press.
Comments
It seems to me that these
It seems to me that these people that were doing the hiring process did not do a good job in looking into the background of Borzellieri otherwise wouldn't anything have come up?
I think that if you want to
I think that if you want to say what you think and share your opinions with the world, that is fine. But you have to deal with the consequences. And they will come in the same proportion, soon or later.
The hiring process should have absolutely been better, specially for a headmaster position. But we never know how manipulative he was in his interviews. This people have great persuasion techniques, so we never know what he said in order to get the job.
It is a sad situation specially because it is a school. I hope that whatever the kids heard about this, they got the lesson that it is a wrong thing to do. Schools should be more careful with who they hire.
I agree
I believe that you are rigth! there should be a better way to select people to hire. If that person is going to write and represent the name of a entity it should be a better reseacrh to study the person. However, how you said we can not know everything about this story and it could be manipulation or others abilities that migth play a role in here.
Good coment.
Own opinions
There is something beautifull about society and it is the freedom that exist to give each person thoughts. Of course in this article we clearly see the own opinion about ''races'' from a guy who was writing for a school. The person who wrote about this was sharing his own opinion. However each person need to be prepared to recieve the concequences of it. This guy was punished and I believe that was the rigth thing to do.
There is an issue here because he was writing for a school, so he was kind of representing an entity. The main problem was when they let him get that job. There should be a more minutious research of the background of each potential employee and do a better selection of it.
Racist comments
I think regardless of if he changed his name or not, these were his true feelings at one time which makes him unfit to lead a school in America. Americans are the most diverse population on the planet and anyone who thinks that they are going to reverse that or somehow cleanse society so that there is only " acceptable" races, shows how ignorant and disconnected They are. It was the right thing to do to fire this person as soon as the school found out what his true identity and his ideology was.
This article is just...
This article is just... Disgusting. I cannot believe people still act like this in 2014. The fact that he changed his name, makes me think he knew everything he says and stands for is terrible and self centered. This man should never be in high power, especially a school. This could be poising the minds of children and the idea of diversity. I'm happy the school fired him, and I'm sad that he even got the chance to be hired in the first place. I hope the are more careful about who they hire next.
Racist writing
I wish they had more information on the racist material he wrote than the he said, she said. But from what was written by him, it is sad that someone could be filled with so much hate. I am glad he was fired, I believe your school environment can influence your views on race. Without him teaching those children, racism won't be an issue.
Everyone is entitled to
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about everything. Borzellieri did choose to put himself and his opinions out there. I believe that it is his own fault.
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