Crucified by

the
Catholic
Church

The true story of the cowardly

politically correct
firing of a Catholic school principal
by the
Archdiocese of New York

Frank Borzellieri
 Crucified by the
Catholic Church

The true story of the cowardly politically correct

firing of a Catholic school principal by the
Archdiocese of New York

Frank Borzellieri
Copyright 2012 © Frank Borzellieri

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or parts thereof.

First Printing

Frank Borzellieri
New York, New York

www.crucifiedbythecatholicchurch.blogspot.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012907231

Borzellieri, Frank.
Crucified by the catholic church: the true story of the cowardly politically correct
firing of a catholic school principal by the archdiocese of new york/Frank Borzellieri.
New York, N.Y. :Frank Borzellieri, 2012
p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-9815407-3-3

Publication date June 5, 2012

Manufactured in the United States of America.

 Dedicated to

My students at the all-girls

Saint Barnabas High School
Class of 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not

tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you
wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:9

“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set
an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in
purity.”
1 Timothy 4:12
 Crucified by the
Catholic Church

The true story of the cowardly politically correct

firing of a Catholic school principal by the
Archdiocese of New York
Crucified 1

Author’s Note
This book is different from my six previous books in many ways.
First of all, I hesitate to even call it a book. It is actually a monograph,
due to its shorter length and focus on one specific incident. So it may
be called a book, a glorified treatise, or a monograph. But since it has
a bar code and ISBN, I will for the sake of simplicity, refer to it as a
book.
Secondly, this is the first book for which I had neither an agent nor
a publisher. I started to go the usual route, sending an outline and man-
uscript to my agent, but nixed that idea rather quickly. Because of the
unique nature of this book, I wanted – I absolutely needed – complete
control of its contents. Moreover, I did not have the time to wait for the
protracted process of the usual book-publishing procedure. Therefore,
I solely am responsible for the contents of this book. I completely own
the copyright. I have paid for the publication and distribution of the
book myself, partially with contributions, and I have generated all of
the attendant publicity. Although, as I will explain, I can hardly afford
to pay for such an undertaking, telling this story is absolutely neces-
sary because justice and righteousness demand it. The need to reveal
the true story behind the injustice that was done to me by the Arch-
diocese of New York is simply overwhelming. I can never truly obtain
justice from the Archdiocese of New York after they destroyed my ca-
reer, but I can obtain a measure of justice by revealing the details of a
story that they desperately do not want you to read. Indeed, they don’t
want you to know anything about what is contained in these pages.
This was a very painful book to write. It was painful because I re-
veal some very personally catastrophic information and I will explain
why. In my years working as a teacher, dean, and ultimately school
principal in the Archdiocese of New York, I did not socialize with
teachers or any of the staff. I generally kept my private life private.
This was never a reflection of my feelings toward my teachers and
secretaries. I still feel a very strong love and affection for the teachers
and staff at St. Barnabas High School, where I was Dean of Student
Affairs, and at Our Lady of Mount Carmel School, where I was prin-
cipal. I miss them very much, and in the case of Mount Carmel, I still
2 Crucified

consider myself the legitimate principal (as do teachers I have spoken

to). I quote many people herein and name many names but I am espe-
cially careful and vague about whom I have spoken to at Our Lady of
Mount Carmel. The teachers there still work directly for the man who
fired me. I must be especially careful to protect them. I quote only one
Mount Carmel teacher in this book, and I do it without revealing the
name. Those who need to publicly testify at a libel defamation trial
will do so. But for now, I am withholding their names. Nevertheless, I
reveal more in this book than I ever did to my teachers in person. My
political life may have been an open book; all of my writings were vis-
ible and available on amazon and the worldwide web. But my life as a
teacher, dean and principal, and also my private life, were not.
In these pages, you will learn the truth about people who are gen-
erally unknown to the world, though they are known to employees
of the Archdiocese of New York. The names you will become famil-
iar with include, most notably, the people who fired me: Father Eric
Rapaglia, Timothy McNiff, Fran Davies, Joseph Zwilling, and the re-
porter for the New York Daily News, Corinne Lestch, against whom
I have initiated a libel defamation lawsuit, as well as someone named
Ann Marie Zagaglia, whom I am also suing.
There is something else I need to make clear up front. The Arch-
diocese of New York has tried to suppress much of the information I
reveal in this book. For a time, they were, unfortunately, successful.
I will explain how they did it. Why they did it will become obvious.
All of what I reveal about them is embarrassing to the individuals
I expose. And that is putting it mildly. I expose them for the liars,
frauds, and cowards that they are. Many people reading this book will
be shocked that these offenses could actually be perpetrated by the
Catholic Church. To the extent that these liars and frauds will try to
deny what I reveal in this book, they will have a big problem: I have
proof. In addition, in this book I am protecting the names of some of
my supporters, even though they will be testifying in my libel suit. If
you want to know who they are, come attend the trial). I have saved
every relevant email that I ever exchanged with Rapaglia. But I must
make this even more clear. Even without audio recordings or emails,
my revelations of these events will be obviously true to anyone read-
ing them for the simple reason that I document and explain them ir-
Crucified 3

refutably, and there are witnesses. My colleagues at the Archdiocese

of New York, especially other principals and staffers at diocese head-
quarters, will know my revelations are all true because they best know
how things really operate there.
So right now I make this challenge to any of the degenerate los-
ers I expose in this book. If you dare dispute any of the facts I reveal
herein, we will agree to go to one or more reputable lie detector ser-
vices, get wired up and tested, then make the results public. We will
also agree that the loser pays all expenses. That would be hilarious.
Moreover, I challenge anyone I expose in this book to a televised de-
bate on anything that I write about in this book. If anyone challenges
the facts I expose herein, let’s go on television and debate it.
I will also debate anyone of these same people on the specific
racial political issues that I had written about in the past, those state-
ments that got me fired. So if Timothy McNiff or Eric Rapaglia or
Fran Davies or Joseph Zwilling want to debate on some of my writ-
ings in my books The Unspoken Truth or Don’t Take it Personally, I
would be happy to point out their hypocrisy and stupidity in a public
forum. I’ll even take all four of them on at the same time. If we cannot
get a news program to host the debate, we will rent a studio and record
it ourselves and post it on youtube.
Of course, that will never happen, because those cowards would
never engage in a debate they know they cannot possibly win. They
are only brave when they have the Church’s money and lawyers to
hide behind. I would love to be a fly on the wall when they read the
contents of this book. You see, not only will they know it’s all true,
they will know that everybody else will know it’s true.
Finally, because I own the full copyright for this book, I want to
set certain parameters of distribution and use. In addition to the hard
copy, I have also placed this entire book online in PDF form to make it
easier for people to email the link to others. The online version is also
important because it is where I will be posting updates. Because I want
maximum distribution of this book, I give my permission to any and
all to distribute this book, make photocopies, distribute PDFs, email
the link, post the link on your Facebook accounts and get this into as
many hands and in front of as many eyes as possible. The only caveat
is that no one is permitted to make any money or charge anything for
4 Crucified

copies of this book.

Furthermore, I am not charging for this book, but I am asking for
contributions, at least for what it cost me.
Please feel free to write to me words of support and encourage-
ment. I would love to hear from you. Unlike my bosses at the Archdio-
cese, I can absolutely and forever be trusted. If you wish, I will keep
your name a secret to protect you. If you post a comment online, you
can do so anonymously, or make your name known only to me.
I want to thank those people who willingly participated in this
book, allowing me to quote them, and to those who contacted me to
offer their love and support through this most difficult time in my life.
I also want to thank the magnificent cartoonist Stoney, whose wonder-
ful cartoons appear in these pages. Political cartoons are in the great
American tradition and often capture a sentiment more effectively
than the written word. Stoney’s cartoons do this brilliantly and hilari-
ously. They are great fun for everyone except his victims.
I must also thank in a very special way my former students from
St. Barnabas all-girls High School, who are all young women now.
The supportive calls and emails I received from them after I was fired
gave me the strength of a thousand men at a time when I needed it. The
love and affection I have for those girls is greater than any teacher or
dean could possibly have for his students. And so I dedicate this book
to them.
Crucified 5

Introduction
On August 1, 2011 I was fired by the Catholic Church, or more
specifically, the Archdiocese of New York, or even more specifically
Father Eric Rapaglia, the pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel par-
ish, who was my direct boss where I was school principal. All of this
is somewhat semantical. I was fired by the Catholic Church. It’s re-
ally that simple. Outside of the Vatican, you don’t get more “official”
Catholic than the Archdiocese of New York. It is quite true that Jesus,
the main man of the Church, would never have approved of my dis-
graceful mistreatment. But degenerate human beings are running the
Church down here on earth and, man, are they giving Jesus the finger
big time.
I was hired in June 2009 to be principal of Our Lady of Mount
Carmel School in the Bronx after four successful years in the Arch-
diocese. I was an English teacher at Blessed Sacrament High School
in New Rochelle and then an English and journalism teacher at St.
Barnabas High School, an all-girls school in the Bronx. It was at St.
Barnabas High School that I made my bones as an administrator. I
was promoted to Dean of Discipline at the end of my first year at
the school by the principal, Michael Musante. During my second year
at St. Barnabas, I assumed the title of Dean of Student Affairs and
took on extra duties. I was the equivalent of an assistant principal and
shared an office with Frances Dziuma, the assistant principal for aca-
demics. In my final year at St. Barnabas, 2008-2009, we had a new
principal, Sister Joan Faraone. I must add that all the schools I worked
for in the Archdiocese had overwhelmingly black and Hispanic stu-
dent populations.
It was during this year at St. Barnabas that I realized that I loved
the job of school administration so much that it was the way to go for
my career. I started taking classes for a Masters degree in school ad-
ministration at St. John’s University. I was already pursuing a separate
Masters degree in Public Communications at another Catholic institu-
tion, Fordham University, to buttress my credentials as a journalism
and writing professor, a job I had done for years as adjunct professor
at St. John’s. This was a very grueling time for me. I was a college stu-
6 Crucified

dent from 2006 to 2011 and in the years 2008 to 2010, I was enrolled
in both universities at the same time, taking a total of 12 credits per
semester. Through it all, I completed both degrees with a perfect 4.0
grade point average, graduating from Fordham in Spring 2010 and
from St. John’s in Spring 2011. I passed my New York State certifica-
tion exam in November 2010 for school administration and received
an Excellence in School Leadership Award from St. John’s. My Mas-
ters thesis, a requirement at Fordham, so impressed my mentor that
it was eventually published as a book. All of this – five full years of
expensive schooling and hours of hard work – would all be for noth-
ing, down the drain when the Archdiocese destroyed my career. But I
will get to all that soon enough.
During my first two years at St. Barnabas, I became friendly with
Father Eric Rapaglia, a parish priest who would occasionally come to
visit the high school. Before I worked there, Rapaglia had had a very
strange relationship with teachers at the high school. For the most part,
they thought he was nuts, that his theology was too conservative. I was
told that he had actually warned the students with the fear of going
to hell for any sexual transgressions. Whenever the subject of Father
Rapaglia came up, which was not often, I always defended him, since
both my politics and my theology are also very conservative. As Rapa-
glia and I became closer and friendlier, we began conversing on a very
high level. We discussed topics such as the Jesus Seminar, Vatican II,
the Ottaviani Intervention, evolution, physics, literature, and politics.
He was genuinely impressed that he had found a teacher who was
knowledgeable about these things. We were also roughly the same age
and both rabid sports fans, and enthusiasts of “The Honeymooners.”
We shared very similar politics and theology. Suffice it to say that
each of us was very comfortable with the other and held the other in
high regard. Little did I know at the time, I was actually dealing with
the most dishonest, dishonorable man I have ever known (and that’s
saying a lot since I know people in politics!) But I’m getting ahead of
myself.
At the end of the 2008 school year, Rapaglia was leaving St. Barn-
abas, having been promoted to pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
parish in another section of the Bronx. This all seemed to be a perfect
storm, because a year later there was an opening at his elementary
Crucified 7

school for principal. Another priest at St. Barnabas, Father Brendan

Fitzgerald, was both good friends with Rapaglia and close to me,
as we also shared conservative theology and politics. It was Father
Fitzgerald who first told me about the opening at Our Lady of Mount
Carmel. “You are exactly the kind of principal he would be looking
for,” Fitzgerald told me.
This could not possibly have come together more perfectly. I was
now qualified to be a principal, both through my experience and my
education, at exactly the time that there was an opening at Our Lady
of Mount Carmel. Rapaglia was very happy that I was available for the
job. Likewise, there was no priest I would rather work for. Many pas-
tors and principals do not have good or close relationships. But Rapa-
glia and I were so comfortable with each other and saw eye to eye on
virtually everything that our closeness was frequently the subject of
jokes – when we weren’t talking about the Mets and Yankees, we were
bashing liberals in society and in the Church. One teacher at Mount
Carmel even wrote in my evaluation that the school greatly benefited
from the closeness of the pastor and the principal.
At Our Lady of Mount Carmel School, our close relationship was
legendary, with teachers even observing that I could do whatever I
wanted and could do no wrong in Rapaglia’s eyes. Although Rapaglia
was a very knowledgeable and hands-on pastor, he did indeed place
his full trust in me. I often commented to the Bronx superintendent,
Roseann Carotenuto, who was also my boss, and to people at the Arch-
diocese that I was in a very advantageous position compared to other
principals, many of whom I heard complaining about their pastors.
One old friend from St. Barnabas asked if Rapaglia and I had turned
Mount Carmel into a “pre-Vatican II” institution.
Rapaglia and I were very close on a personal level, too. Although
I did not socialize with teachers or staff, Rapaglia and I would fre-
quently have meals together. He was present at several family func-
tions, and I don’t mean a party with 20 people. I mean family dinners
with only my parents and my sister. That’s how close Rapaglia was to
my family. He became especially close to my mother when she was
stricken with cancer and several times called her at home. When we
had a shocking and horrific death in the family, Rapaglia was the first
one I called.
8 Crucified

All of this is very painful for me to write because I now feel a

genuine sense of dirtiness, a sense of having been violated, for letting
this bad seed so close to my family. The devil always presents himself
in a pleasing form, I guess.
My two years as principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel were
the happiest of my life, or so I thought. I received two evaluations as
principal, one conducted by my superintendent, Roseann Carotenuto,
and one completed solely by Rapaglia at the behest of St. John’s Uni-
versity. Rapaglia gave me an across the board excellent evaluation in
every category. Moreover, that is exactly what he told everyone about
me during the two years I was principal – “excellent in every way.”
Two years and two months after the day he hired me, and after re-
newing my contract twice, and after praising me as “excellent in every
way,” Eric Rapaglia and the Archdiocese of New York fired me in the
most craven and cowardly manner. My firing was a purely 100 percent
political act that had nothing whatsoever to do with my performance
as principal or my six years as an employee of the Archdiocese. In
fact, in those six years, all the Archdiocese did was promote me again
and again. I was fired because of a libelous article in the New York
Daily News that made reference to writings I had written some 10 to
15 years earlier and which both Eric Rapaglia and the Archdiocese of
New York already knew about.
The details of this sordid affair I will be revealing in the forthcom-
ing pages, but this point is in need of repeating even now – I was fired
for writings that Eric Rapaglia and the Archdiocese knew about and
approved – years earlier. That’s what they don’t want you to know. It
was only because of the embarrassment they felt after the publication
of the Daily News article that they fired me. In the following pages, I
will blow the lid off this story, exposing the facts that they don’t want
you to read and that they desperately tried to suppress. I will detail the
cowardly betrayal by Eric Rapaglia, who knew about and very much
liked and agreed with the very writings that he eventually fired me for.
I will also expose the disgraceful lies he is telling now, claiming that
he didn’t know about my writings.
This is a very sad and horrific story, especially for loyal and de-
vout Catholics. It will be a very painful thing for Catholics to see
this kind of cowardice, dishonesty and cravenness perpetrated by their
Crucified 9

Church. For the actions and decisions of the Archdiocese of New York
are not motivated or informed by Jesus or Christian charity. They are
motivated by crass political correctness, even if it means destroying
the life and career of a loyal and devout son of the Church.
10 Crucified

The Beginning of the End

Although this story actually begins in the spring of 2007 when the
Archdiocese of New York officially approved my writings as not in
violation of Catholic teaching, and after which they continued to pro-
mote me, I will tell that part of the story in flashback in the following
chapter. Right now, I will begin with events on Friday, July 8, 2011,
which is three weeks before I was fired.
Father Eric Rapaglia had renewed my contract for the second time
and I was preparing to begin my third year as principal of Our Lady
of Mount Carmel in September. I had decided that I would take some
days off during the month of July and would work a full month in
August. The school was open for the summer school program I had
instituted and I would go into work about two or three days per week
during July. On Friday, July 8, I had to attend a meeting with Rapa-
glia at the Archdiocese headquarters in Manhattan with the pastors
and principals of several other schools. That afternoon, I was meeting
someone at a lower Manhattan watering hole. So after the meeting, I
went back home to Queens to change and then head back to Manhat-
tan. It was during the hour or so that I was home checking my school
email that I saw an email from my secretary that the Daily News was
trying to contact me. I read the email briefly and assumed it was from
an advertising guy who recently had been soliciting me to take a “back
to school” ad.
When I went back to work on Monday, my secretary asked me if
I had gotten her email. It was then that she explained that it was a re-
porter from the Daily News who was doing a story on my past writings
or, more specifically, my conservative writings on race and immigra-
tion. My first reaction was that this was an annoyance, that the Daily
News was just starting trouble because the issue of my writings and
the approval given to me by the Archdiocese had already been put to
bed and settled back in 2007.
I cannot emphasize this point too strongly and I cannot say it
enough times – what was inherently wrong about the Daily News or
any other newspaper doing a story about my writings is that it simply
was not a story. And I say this also as a professional journalist and
Crucified 11

Father Eric Rapaglia is the most dishonest,

dishonorable person I have ever known. He is
a fraud, a coward, a liar and a hypocrite. He
read all of my writings, but now denies it. He
fired me 24 hours after vowing that he never
would.
university journalism professor. These were writings that I had written
10 to 15 years ago, they were available on the internet, and the Arch-
diocese already knew about them and found me fit to work (and be
promoted) in the schools, since my writings did not violate Catholic
teaching. This was an attempt by the Daily News to start trouble over
12 Crucified

a settled issue. Because my writings were very conservative political

opinions that offend liberals, this was simply an attempt to get people
stirred up. I was already principal for two years. Plainly, none of it af-
fected my job as principal whatsoever. This was an attempt to put po-
litical pressure on the Archdiocese about something they had already
approved of.
When I spoke to the reporter, Corinne Lestch, I really impressed
this upon her. First of all, I told her, this was simply not a story. My
writings had already been approved by the Archdiocese and they had
promoted me three times since reviewing my writings. Secondly, I
told her I was not permitted to talk to reporters, per the Archdiocese
policy that principals could not speak to the press without permission.
Of course, I could have requested to speak with her but I truly believed
that even to speak to her was to lend justification to the story. I told her
she could speak on the record to my pastor, Father Eric Rapaglia, who
was my direct boss and was the person who hired me.
I quickly sensed that this was not going to be a pleasant experi-
ence, that Lestch was clearly biased and was preparing to do a hatchet
job on me. I explained to her that I was a professional journalist my-
self, and teach journalism at the university level. I further explained
to her that I understood what and why something is considered a valid
news story and this was not it. But in the end, when you have a corrupt
and biased reporter with an insidious agenda, truth and journalistic in-
tegrity do not matter. In the end, of course, the story she printed turned
out to be far worse than even I had imagined.
In this same conversation, I told Lestch that Rapaglia had read
all of my political writings, too, and was my biggest supporter. When
I hung up with Lestch, I called Rapaglia and told him that the Daily
News was doing this story and the reporter would be contacting him.
My conversation with Rapaglia would begin a three-week pattern
of Rapaglia giving me his most ironclad assurances that this would
amount to nothing and that I shouldn’t worry about anything. It was
in this conversation that Rapaglia first joked that an article might be a
good thing for me in that it would help me sell some books.
Although he would later deny it through his lying teeth, Eric Rapa-
glia had read all of the pertinent writings of mine long ago, praised
them, agreed with them, gave them to people and recommended them
Crucified 13

to others, and even used an article of mine as a source for one of his
Sunday homilies. I can prove this and document this in so many ways
that it is truly laughable that Rapaglia even attempts to deny it.
Within a few days, Rapaglia told me about his conversation with
Lestch. The first thing he said was that it was obvious that the reporter
had an agenda, that she had a left-wing liberal ax to grind and would
not write a fair article. She was reading quotes from my books to him
and asking him to comment. He told me that he actually warned her
about the dangers of what he termed “sound bite” journalism. She
would take a phrase that I used in my writings way out of context,
and he told her to be careful, that these were very complex issues
that needed to be examined very carefully. He also told her that my
research was very thorough and meticulous and that the things I had
written about required lengthy analysis, not quick responses to phras-
es out of context. He told her that I had never had a complaint against
me on any racial grounds, that I was an excellent principal, that I chose
a career to work with minorities and that I had an exemplary history
of working with minorities. He told her that my views were actually
“good for minorities.” This quote was used in the final article, much
to Rapaglia’s chagrin, it would turn out.
Over the course of the next week, Rapaglia and I had several con-
versations about the impending article. He continued to be very calm
and cool. He reminded me of something that I was already well aware
of – that he alone controlled my job. In the Canon Law of the Catholic
Church, pastors answer only to the archbishop, so I could not be in a
better position, he said. My biggest supporter, Eric Rapaglia, was the
only one who could hire me or fire me. But I must stress that at this
point in the story there was never any talk of me being fired. It was
a preposterous notion. Although I was concerned about the fallout of
what was clearly going to be a hatchet job of an article, I was much
more concerned about the reaction of the cowards at the Archdiocese
central office, who are always motivated by politics, especially po-
litical correctness. Rapaglia brushed off other concerns I had, such as
what parents in our school would think.
“Look,” Rapaglia said. “You’ve already been principal for two
years. They know you now. They are happy with our school. I can’t
imagine any kind of an uproar from parents.” He said that even if
14 Crucified

parents had questions, we were both well-liked and respected by the

parents of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and we could easily speak to
them or meet with them and allay any concerns. But even this scenario
he dismissed as unlikely, that it would never come to that.
Everything Rapaglia said to this point was true. Even when par-
ents had gotten upset with me or the school, it was for the reasons
parents always get upset – they owed money to the school or their
children were in trouble for some reason. These are things all princi-
pals have to deal with. But no one had ever, in my entire career, ever
accused me of mistreating a child on account of race, or any other
reason. It was a ridiculous idea. Rapaglia was very upfront about this,
alleviating my distress and anxiety. At one point he even referred to
any article that would come out as a “puff of smoke” that would blow
over. Every single ounce of evidence and documentation of my career
indicated my great love and affection for students of all races and eth-
nicities. That was all that mattered, Rapaglia said again and again. He
would also repeatedly say, “You have chosen to work with minorities.
Don’t worry about anything.”
Famous last words.
Crucified 15

The Big Meeting

On Tuesday, July 19, I received a call from Timothy McNiff, the
superintendent of schools for the Archdiocese. The Daily News re-
porter Corinne Lestch had contacted the Archdiocese for comment on
my writings. Before this phone call, I already had no illusions; I was
already convinced that the story would be a major hatchet job. But
after the call, there was simply no doubt. The department of education
of the Archdiocese was now involved at its highest levels. As super-
intendent, McNiff is the top person. The purpose of the call was to
convene a meeting the next day to discuss exactly how we were going
to handle this inquiry from the Daily News.
When McNiff called me and told me what the call was about, I
reacted with uncharacteristic anger, although not specifically at him.
I explained to him the utter unfairness of this whole thing, that the
diocese had already seen and approved of my past writings. I further
emphasized the two things that I would state over and over again: first,
this is not a story; and second, if it is, it has already been done and is
already over with. Rapaglia had also received the call from McNiff,
so we headed down to Archdiocese headquarters the next day. What is
important to understand is that this was still the “pre-article” Rapaglia,
the one who was my biggest supporter and defender.
The meeting was on Wednesday, July 20. Those present at the
meeting were McNiff, public relations person Fran Davies, lawyer
Rod Cassidy, who was invited by McNiff to sit in, Rapaglia, and me.
Timothy McNiff, the superintendent of schools for the Archdio-
cese of New York, is, for the most part, a despised figure by Bronx
principals. I have no doubt that principals in the other counties within
the Archdiocese feel the same way. Since I had only been a principal
for two years, I did not yet share the contempt for McNiff that Bronx
principals had. I never heard a positive word about the man from any
Bronx principal. He was genuinely spoken of with great disdain and
biting sarcasm. The general gripe that Bronx principals had with Mc-
Niff was his transparent inauthenticity. He was not only believed to be
a phony, he actually came across as a phony. If Hollywood was cast-
ing the part of a well-coifed, smooth-talking con man, McNiff would
16 Crucified

be the choice. I would go so far as to say that McNiff could best be

described as a parody of a con man, so thoroughly did his manner fit
the image. Although I reserved judgment of the man in the interests of
fairness, I would soon find out that McNiff was every bit the cowardly
political hack that other principals told me he was.
McNiff is also one of those guys who always greets you with an
exaggeratedly strong handshake, attempting to cut off the circulation
as if he is competing in the strongest man in the world competition.
The joke I heard circulating was that McNiff did this to compensate
for his otherwise lack of masculine qualities. One principal in the
Bronx, a nun, always referred to McNiff as the guy who got his PhD
“off the internet.”
Fran Davies is a church whore, a public relations prostitute whose
claim to fame is getting a correction printed in the New York Times.
Very impressive. She is the type of public relations hack who would
have advised Jesus not to speak out publicly against the Pharisees.
“Lord, don’t you know the Pharisees have a huge following and pow-
erful friends? It’s safer to be on their good side.” Yes indeed, political
expediency and sucking up to the forces of political correctness are
Fran Davies’ specialties, not truth or justice in the Christian tradition.
One female Bronx principal (not a nun), with whom I spoke the week
after I was fired, told me that Fran Davies “always walks around like
she has a broomstick up her ass.” After I stopped laughing, I assumed
this principal meant that remark figuratively, that Fran Davies was
simply a snob. But upon reflection, who knows? Maybe she meant it
literally.
McNiff and Davies started off by explaining that the Daily News
had called for a response to my writings for the story. It was Davies
who had actually spoken to the reporter Corinne Lestch. Between the
time Lestch had contacted them and this meeting, Davies and McNiff
had done some of their own research, namely on the two things Lestch
had brought to their attention: my own writings, and my connection
with American Renaissance. After informing me of the conversation
with the reporter, the meeting basically began with a monologue by
me, explaining how angry I was that this issue had again arisen and
the unfairness of it. This is essentially what I said as everyone listened
Crucified 17

Timothy McNiff is a despised figure by Bronx

principals. The general gripe was his transpar-
ent inauthenticity. He was not only believed
to be a phony, he actually came across as a
phony. If Hollywood was casting the part of
a well-coifed, smooth-talking con man, Mc-
Niff would be the choice. I would go so far as
to say that McNiff could best be described as
a parody of a con man, so thoroughly did his
manner fit the image.

in silence:
“Back in 2007, the issue was raised when I was working at St. Barn-
abas High School. The principal at the time, Michael Musante, and the
pastor, Monsignor Edward Barry, were made aware of my writings,
mostly in the forms of the two books that contained most of my political
writings, The Unspoken Truth, and Don’t Take it Personally. The books
were collections of political columns I had written over the years and
especially as a columnist for the Leader Observer newspaper chain. The
18 Crucified

writings were written roughly 10 to 15 years ago. I tackled all the

issues – taxes, size of government, crime, gun control, social is-
sues, economic issues, cultural issues – but the columns that were
the subject of all this attention were my writings on immigration
and race.
“Monsignor Barry was ready to renew my contract for the
2007-2008 school year and he was very nice and supportive when
he told me that my writings would be looked over to see if they
were compatible with Catholic teaching. He was extremely casu-
al about it, telling me not to worry and that it was only a routine
thing. Principal Mike Musante was totally supportive of me and
enjoyed my writings, he said, very much, although his politics
are more liberal than mine. Monsignor Barry was going to take
the time to read them and also to send them to the appropriate
authority at the Archdiocese for approval. That authority was
someone named Monsignor Michael Hull, who will become a
very important person in this story.
“Monsignor Barry assured me that he makes up his own
mind on these matters and would not be swayed by unreason-
able people. This was a very interesting remark and its import
was explained to me by Mike Musante. It seems that the person
in charge of personnel and contract renewals at the Archdiocese
was Sister Patricia Anastasio, who is someone I have never met
nor spoken to. Nevertheless, according to Mike Musante, Anas-
tasio was a typical nervous diocese bureaucrat who was motivat-
ed by political correctness, not by any sense of right and wrong
or justice. Musante told me that Anastasio had told Monsignor
Barry explicitly not to renew my contract – not because I had
done anything wrong – but for purely political reasons (or more
appropriately, “politically correct” reasons). Mike was very spe-
cific about what Anastasio said to Monsignor Barry: ‘We can’t
have Al Sharpton protesting in the streets outside the school.’
“Well, that’s just great. There we have it. The true motiva-
tion of the Archdiocese of New York – to deliberately mistreat
and do injustice to their own people in order to satisfy the fringe
radicals like Sharpton, who isn’t even a Catholic. As I would one
day find out, the Archdiocese is full of people exactly like Sister
Patricia Anastasio – people motivated by political correctness
and not truth or justice.
“Nevertheless, within a week, Monsignor Barry called me
Crucified 19

Fran Davies is a church whore, a public rela-

tions prostitute whose claim to fame is getting
a correction printed in the New York Times.
Very impressive. She is the type of public rela-
tions hack who would have advised Jesus not
to speak out publicly against the Pharisees.
“Lord, don’t you know the Pharisees have a
huge following and powerful friends? It’s safer
to be on their good side.” One female Bronx
principal (not a nun) told me that Fran Davies
“always walks around like she has a broom-
stick up her ass.”

at home to tell me that he was happily renewing my contract. He joked

about some of my writings, saying that “although they may not necessar-
ily represent the views of management,” he thought they were actually
quite impressive and most importantly did not violate Catholic teaching.
Within a few weeks, Monsignor Barry sent me an official letter which
was copied to Catherine Hickey, the school superintendent at the time
and McNiff’s predecessor; Principal Musante; and Monsignor Michael
Hull, who had approved my writings as not in violation of Catholic teach-
ing. Monsignor Hull is a very important person in this story since he is
20 Crucified

the one who cleared my books. He is what is known as the Cen-

sor Librorum, an ecclesiastical authority charged with reviewing
texts. So not only was my contract renewed, I was promoted to
Dean of Discipline!
“How my books came to the attention of Mike Musante and
Monsignor Barry in 2007 is a very important detail in the story
of how I was fired in 2011, although I could never have known
it at the time. One particular teacher at the high school, an Eng-
lish teacher named Connie Anestis, was responsible for googling
my name and giving the information to Musante and Monsignor
Barry. The reason this is important is not only because of Connie
Anestis herself, but because of one of the people she told.
“Anestis told the person who was the principal of St. Barn-
abas elementary school, which was across the street from the
high school where I worked and had no connection whatsoever
with the high school other than Monsignor Barry was the boss of
both. This principal was Ann Marie Zagaglia, who is no longer
the principal there (she was eventually not renewed by Monsi-
gnor Barry for her awful stewardship of the school), but who
turned out to be the person quoted in the libelous Daily News
article that got me fired, even though I had never had a conver-
sation with her in my life. I will tell the entire story of Ann Marie
Zagaglia in a later section of this book.
“Two years later, in June 2009, when I had just been hired
as principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the issue came up
briefly again. Coincidence? Hardly. Although it was very con-
fusing to me at the time and I believed Connie Anestis, even in
retirement, was behind this yet again, this is what happened: No
sooner was I hired than a teacher at St. Barnabas elementary
school named Rita Ferrari contacted Rapaglia to tell him about
my writings and to “warn” him about the man he was hiring. I
had never heard the name Rita Ferrari, had no idea what her
possible interest in me could be, and to this day I don’t even
know what she looks like. She turned out to be the sister of Ann
Marie Zagaglia, the person who in 2011 was quoted in the Daily
News article. But in 2009, I was confused by all this. My principal
in my final year at St. Barnabas was no longer Mike Musante,
but Sister Joan Faraone. It was Sister Joan who told me about all
this because Rita Ferrari approached her to infom her about my
writings, too. Sister Joan was exasperated by what she viewed as
Crucified 21

an unfair attack on me and told me that she said to Ferrari, “Can’t you
give the guy a break? He just got the job and already you’re trying to
get him fired.” Moreover, as far as I knew, Sister Joan was already long
apprised of the events of 2007, when my writings were already cleared
by the Archdiocese.
“Sister Joan also told me that she would complain to Monsignor
Barry, to get Rita Ferrari to stop her campaign against me. In any event,
I got the job and one day at lunch in a diner in July 2009, Rapaglia told
me the same basic story that Sister Joan had told me – that Rita Ferrari
had approached him and told him about my writings and to be warned.
She also told him that my secret reason for taking the job was to do
“research” on minorities. You can’t make this stuff up. Rapaglia took
all this in with casual humor. He had already ordered my books from
Amazon and read them, and liked them. (This part of the story turned
out to be yet more evidence in 2011 that Rapaglia was lying when he said
he was unaware of my writings). So at that point in 2009, Rapaglia was
added to the list of Archdiocese bosses who were officially aware of my
writings and also aware that they had been approved – added to Monsi-
gnor Hull, Monsignor Barry, Catherine Hickey, Michael Musante, and
Sister Joan.”

Having told this story about what happened in 2007 and 2009
to everyone in the room, I then referred again to June of 2009. I ex-
plained how I applied for the principalship of Our Lady of Mount
Carmel School with the full support of Monsignor Barry. He wrote a
letter of recommendation to Rapaglia which I also sent to the Arch-
diocese as part of my application package. Although I did not bring
Monsignor Barry’s letter of recommendation to this meeting, I did tell
McNiff about his constant and enthusiastic support for me. For the
record, I will quote from Monsignor Barry’s letter here: “I hired Frank
in 2006 as a teacher in my high school. From his teaching position
he was promoted to Dean of Discipline as well as moderator of our
high school newspaper. In the three years of his employment Frank
has always been punctual, reliable, industrious, balanced, open to new
ideas and a team player with good communication skills as an admin-
istrator. Frank always exhibits a positive attitude toward the students
and the school, all the while maintaining discipline in the school and
living up to the school’s mission statement. I am sad to have him leave
22 Crucified

us, however I am glad that he is pursuing his talents to the best of his
ability.”
Oh my, this was quite an endorsement from a priest who two years
prior had read all of my writings. So here was Monsignor Barry, who
had read my books, overruled the politically correct bureaucrat Sister
Patricia Anastasio, renewed my contract, promoted me twice, and then
recommended me for principal. No doubt, McNiff and Fran Davies
were squirming in their seats as I went on about Monsignor Barry’s
support of me. Even in the face of my firing a month later, Monsignor
Barry would continue to support me, as best he could.
But I still was not done with my monologue. “Monsignor Barry
would hire me today to be principal of both his schools if there was an
opening,” I said. I then went on about my accomplishments, patting
myself on the back, and explaining that rather than be considered a
detriment, my authorship should be a source of pride for the diocese.

Monsignor
Michael Hull is
the man who
cleared and
approved my
writings in
2007 as not
in violation
of Catholic
teaching. He is
what is known
as the Censor
Librorum, an
ecclesiastical
authority
charged with
reviewing texts.
He cleared the path for my contract renewal
and promotion. The Archdiocese of New York
now wants to suppress this information.
Crucified 23

“You should be proud to have a principal like me,” I told McNiff. “I

am a person of many extraordinary accomplishments. I am the author
of six books. My Masters thesis was so impressive that my mentor at
Fordham encouraged me to get it published as a book. It comes out
next month. I graduated at the top of my class with a 4.0 grade point
average at both Fordham and St John’s. I was awarded for my academ-
ic performance at St. John’s. I am an adjunct professor of journalism at
a major university. I was elected three times to a New York City school
board and I was the highest vote-getter in Queens. How many of your
principals have those kinds of accomplishments?”
McNiff said, “Frank, I have no doubt you are an excellent princi-
pal. That’s all I’ve heard.”
Although I did not mention it at this meeting, I would also add
two extraordinary recommendations I received from my mentors, in-
cluding those at both St. John’s and Fordham Universities. Normally,
letters of recommendation are boilerplate, but the letters I received
were obviously written especially for me. As an older student, I be-
came closer than usual with my mentors and they had dealings with
me for many years. Of particular importance were Dr. Rosalba Del
Vecchio and Dr. Bob Brasco of St. John’s. They were both supervi-
sors of the Non-Public School program and often worked closely with
high-ranking officials at the Archdiocese of New York. So we all knew
many of the same people.
Dr. Del Vecchio wrote, “I am not given lightly to the task of writ-
ing letters of recommendation. However, writing this one for Frank
Borzellieri is a genuine pleasure. Frank is a student in our School
Building Leader Master program. He was a student in the course that I
teach, Administrative Leadership, and received the grade of A. I found
Frank to be an articulate, dedicated and experienced educator. He has
demonstrated outstanding leadership skills in class and has a clear un-
derstanding of the many complex issues that face an urban principal
today. Frank has a 4.0 GPA in his classes and has gained the respect
of all his professors and colleagues. His life experience as a school
board member in New York City gives Frank a unique and global per-
spective of the entire educational process and will serve him well as
a principal. Frank’s resume speaks to his educational background and
achievements. However, what it does not reveal is that he is a caring,
24 Crucified

loyal and creative individual who possesses a keen social conscience.

It is without reservation that I recommend him for the principalship of
your school.”
Dr. Paul Levinson was my mentor at Fordham and he was largely
responsible for pushing me to get my Masters thesis published as a
book, titled Who Believes in Roswell? Discovering the Profile of the
Roswell Believer. Levinson wrote, “I strongly recommend Frank Bor-
zellieri for a principalship. He was my student in the MA in Public
Communications program at Fordham University, for which he com-
pleted all of his course work with a 4.0 GPA. His degree awaits only
completion of his Masters thesis. I have discussed this thesis with
Frank, and I have no doubt it will be an outstanding piece of work.
Frank’s 4.0 GPA speaks for itself, but let me add that Frank has capaci-
ties for administrative leadership and judgment, for understanding of
faculty and students, that go beyond his GPA. He is that rare person
who is deeply versed in scholarship and history, excels in logic and
ethical analysis, and yet is a man of the world - a person who eas-
ily relates to colleagues and everyone around him. Frank has a ready
smile and a sense of humor, and combines that with a readiness, an
eagerness, to take on the most difficult problems of our age. Frank
made an outstanding contribution in every class in which he was my
student. In sum, I think you have an opportunity with Frank Borzel-
lieri to hire a principal who will hit it out of the ballpark, and inspire
and lead students and faculty to achieve their fullest potential. In my
experience as Chair of the Department of Communications and Media
Studies at Fordham University from 2002-2008, I developed antennae
for qualities that make an educational leader, and Frank has them. He
has my wholehearted endorsement.”
My principal at St. Barnabas High School, Michael Musante,
wrote, “Frank served in the dual capacity of teacher and Dean of Dis-
cipline and performed his duties with energy, efficiency and integrity.
Frank brings to his work a determination to do his very best and to
serve the interests of the school and its students. He pays careful at-
tention to detail, is fair-minded, and diligent in record keeping and
parent contact. During his time at SBHS, he gained the admiration
and respect of the faculty for his performance of his duties – not an
easy task given the disparate personalities at the school during this
Crucified 25

time. More importantly, he gained the trust and respect of the students
who saw him as even handed and fair, and they actually taught him
how to smile while dealing with disciplinary matters – again, no small
achievement with teenagers! Frank displayed a willingness to learn
while on duty, and often talked with me about the correct course of
action. He accepted direction and was good at learning on the job.
The desire to be the best Dean/assistant principal possible has been
manifested in his continuance of his duties and his participation in a
leadership program at St. John’s University. Frank is a loyal, dedicated
person who believed that his job as a school leader is important. He
will continue to grow as responsibilities are given to him and would
be a fine choice to lead a school. He possesses the experience and
maturity to do a fine job.”
I also mentioned to McNiff that when I was evaluated at the end
of my first year as principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Bronx
superintendent, Roseann Carotenuto, was addressing the entire faculty
at the conclusion of evaluation day. She was congratulating me and
the staff and telling my teachers how impressive it was to have a prin-
cipal who was an author. I thought Roseann’s remarks were very kind
because I had never told her I was an author. By itself, her statement
does not prove that she had read my books. But it certainly proves that
however they came to her attention, she received no negative feedback
about my writings at all. Roseann Carotenuto, who was my direct boss
on the academic side of things, had no involvement whatsoever in my
firing.
Since this entire fiasco was about me allegedly being a racist who
somehow became principal of an overwhelmingly black and Hispanic
school, I then referred to a published letter from several years back
from Roy Innis, a black man who is the National Chairman of the
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). I brought copies for everyone.
The letter read in part, “Frank has outdone his liberal critics in actu-
ally getting into the trenches with black people and trying to help them
instead of standing in a glass house and merely pontificating on the
need to help black people, as most white liberals do. Frank became
a regular at our offices in Harlem, traveling by subway to a danger-
ous neighborhood for causes he believed in. Frank assisted in helping
minorities like James Grimes and Carlos Hernandez who were victim-
26 Crucified

ized by street hoodlums. It is regrettable that some liberals seek to

paint Frank unfairly. I am proud to call Frank Borzellieri my friend.”
(The entire Roy Innis letter is printed in full later in this book).
Of the three diocese people present, only the lawyer Rod Cassidy
made a positive remark about the Innis letter. McNiff and Fran Da-
vies did not comment at all about the letter. This, I thought, was very
strange. Here was an absolutely fantastic letter from a prominent black
man that was enormously helpful and revealing. It would be a great
weapon for the diocese to use in defending me from those awful false
accusations. But I would soon find out why McNiff and Davies didn’t
like it. Quite simply, they didn’t like it because it was so good. They
didn’t like that it helped me because it made their job of distancing
themselves from me tougher.
Rapaglia, who had seen the letter days earlier, absolutely loved it
for obvious reasons. He kept referring to it, picking it up, and point-
ing out certain passages, reading them aloud. In fact, throughout my
lengthy monologue, Rapaglia was for the most part quiet, sitting there
like the cat who ate the canary, smiling proudly as I went on about my
accomplishments and made my case so effectively. I was, after all,
his principal and I was therefore a reflection of him. This, of course,
would all change after the Daily News article came out, but at this
meeting Rapaglia, when he did speak, backed me up completely and
forcefully.
McNifff then brought up the matter of American Renaissance, a
publication that discusses issues of race and immigration. I had writ-
ten some articles over the years for American Renaissance and the
Daily News reporter was dying to tie me to a “racist” publication. (My
connection to American Renaissance was also known by the Archdio-
cese since 2007). McNiff told me that he had researched American
Renaissance and said, “It does push the envelope to the edge on some
issues.”
“So what?” I responded. “Who says American Renaissance is rac-
ist? I’ll tell you who says it. The Southern Poverty Law Center. They
are a corrupt group always quoted by the media uncritically when
they want to accuse someone of being a racist.” And that is exactly
what happened in the eventual Daily News article. I will have separate
sections about American Renaissance and the Southern Poverty Law
Crucified 27

Center later in this book.

McNiff then went on about diversity being “a strength” and how
important it was that we embrace multiculturalism and that non-
whites and immigrants are an important constituency of the Church.
Evidently, the reporter had quoted me as contradicting the notion that
diversity is a strength. I responded, “I have always treated everyone
– students, parents, and staff – with great love and affection and I wel-
come families of all races and ethnicities with great love and Christian
charity into my school. In six years working for the Archdiocese, I
have always worked in heavy minority schools and all I ever did was
get promoted. There has never – not once – been a complaint against
me that I mistreated anyone on account of race or that I was ever un-
fair to anyone on account of race. That would be alien to everything I
have always believed as a Christian.” (I will have more to say about
McNiff and the others’ supposed love of racial diversity and multicul-
turalism in the section on white liberal hypocrites).
McNiff turned to Rapaglia. “Father, have you ever had a com-
plaint against Frank?” he asked.
“Never,” Rapaglia replied. “And I want to add to what Frank
has said. You have to remember that Frank has chosen to work with
minorities and in minority neighborhoods his whole career. This has
been his choice.” He also kept emphasizing what Roy Innis put in his
letter.
McNiff then told me that he had ordered my books from Amazon.
After joking that I would have given him autographed copies from
my own collection, I reiterated and persisted in my main argument.
“This is totally unfair,” I said, “because this issue has already been
dealt with, handled, resolved, and to put to bed. Catherine Hickey, the
previous superintendent, was already informed and handled it. Monsi-
gnor Barry and Monsignor Hull already addressed it and approved me
to work in the Archdiocese.”
I then asked McNiff rhetorically, “So what does this mean? Every
time there’s a new superintendent, the whole story, the whole ordeal
begins again anew, as if nothing has ever happened? So if in five years
another reporter for another newspaper wants to start from scratch as
if it’s a brand new story and there’s a new superintendent, do I have
to keep going through this all over again? It’s over. This is completely
28 Crucified

Frank Borzellieri with his mentors from St.

John’s University, Dr. Bob Brasco and Dr.
Rosalba Del Vecchio. Frank received an
Excellence in School Leadership Award.

unfair.”
McNiff actually agreed with that basic point (at least he said he
did), but said he had to be properly prepared because the Daily News
was doing the story anyway. But I persisted. “This isn’t a story. You
should be issuing a statement of support for me, stating that I have
been an exemplary employee and principal for the Archdiocese, that
the writings were reviewed and approved years ago, and that’s that.”
But much to my dismay, McNiff and Davies told me that they
were simply going to answer the Daily News’ questions in a factual
manner. Has Frank had any complaints against him? No. Did Frank
write for American Renaissance? Yes. There would be no statement
of support.
Uh oh. At that point I knew something was terribly wrong. No
company or business, let alone the Catholic Church, fails to support
Crucified 29

one of its most exemplary employees when that employee is being un-
fairly attacked publicly. It was so obvious that they should have been
supporting me. But the meeting ended and the final thing I was told
was simply that Fran Davies would answer the reporter’s questions
and we would wait.
Regarding the conclusion of the meeting, I want to emphasize
this now, and I will do so again. There was never, ever, any discus-
sion about even the remotest possibility of me being fired. The entire
discussion was how to deal with an article that we all agreed would
be a hatchet job. (McNiff himself had his own complaints about how
the Daily News had treated him in an article). That is a very important
point because, as I will show, the diocese could never truthfully claim
that they discovered something they didn’t know from the Daily News
article, which would simply be a rehash of old nonsense. This will
show the treachery of all these Archdiocese cowards.
After the meeting, Rapaglia and I walked a few blocks to a din-
er to meet Father Brendan Fitzgerald for lunch. Fitzgerald is a very
close friend of Rapaglia’s and was another priest whom I was close to
from my days at St. Barnabas. In fact, as I mentioned earlier, it was
Fitzgerald who first told me about the principal opening at Our Lady
of Mount Carmel two years earlier.
At lunch, Rapaglia and I told Fitzgerald what had happened at
the meeting. In keeping with his pattern, Rapaglia continued to treat
this whole incident as minor amusement. He continued to tell me not
to worry and repeated his joke that all that would happen is that I
would sell more books. Fitzgerald expressed his full agreement with
Rapaglia’s take on everything. When I described how McNiff seemed
to be a nervous wreck over this whole thing, the two priests reacted
with more light-hearted humor and it was then that Fitzgerald raised
the issue about how McNiff has this habit of the tight handshake. The
three of us proceeded to make more fun of McNiff, and Fitzgerald
joked that other priests had pointed this out about him, too. In the
scheme of this entire story, the importance of this lunch is simply to
point out that Rapaglia continued to view this ordeal with amusement.
He said it would be nothing but a “puff of smoke” and that I shouldn’t
get worked up over it.
How could I go wrong? This was the man who had the power
30 Crucified

to hire and fire me, and he was my biggest supporter. It was not an
exaggeration to say that Rapaglia and I were closer and had a better
relationship perhaps than any other pastor and principal. That made
his eventual betrayal of me all the more dastardly and sinister and ex-
posed him ultimately as a fraud without a conscience or a spine.

Father
Brendan
Fitzgerald

Even Jesus is confused!

Crucified 31

The Name Game

One other item that I addressed at the big meeting with Tim
McNiff was the issue of my last name, or more accurately, the
various spellings of it. My last name is surrounded by more leg-
end than Geraldo Rivera’s first name, As much as we like the
ethnic Italian name, my last name is absolutely the most mispro-
nounced, misspelled Italian name I have ever come across. Friends
who have known me for 15 years still spell the name wrong. The
correct pronunciation is “Borza-lerry.” But 90 percent of people
who see it for the first time say “Borza-relly.” Don’t ask me why.
I think it has something to do with the cumbersome visual. People
see two letter “l’s” and a letter “i” in an Italian name and they
pronounce it “elly.” In fact, for most of my life people have just
stared at the name with a quizzical look on their face. Those who
attempt to pronounce it usually maul it terribly.
There is more history to this name game. When my father
was in business, he had business cards printed up with the name
“Frank Borzell.” He shortened it for business, but never short-
ened it legally, which was a mistake. My grandfather had also
talked of changing it legally but never did. So every succeeding
generation was saddled with the name because the previous gen-
eration never bothered to change it legally. The problem is then
that people know you by that name and it becomes unrealistic for
a middle-aged man to start going by a different last name.
The name has been such a burden that even within the fam-
ily, people have spelled it differently. My aunts Josephine and
Rosalie (my father’s sisters) spelled it with an “e” at the end in-
stead of an “i.” My cousin Bette Jo spells it “Borzelliri.” It is
a very strange situation when siblings spell the same last name
differently. Like my father and grandfather, I never bothered to
change it legally, but I did try to ease the burden somewhat and
in certain circumstances. For articles I was writing in the early
90’s, I spelled it “Borzelere,” almost giving it a French look. My
yahoo account is “Frank Borzelli,” chopping off the last three let-
32 Crucified

ters, as is my Verizon account. As a teacher, I have always been

called “Mr. B.” because of that last name. The most common
shortening I have used is “Borzelleri” which I used at my jobs in
schools. This removed one letter but kept the phonetics the same.
It hardly worked.
There is a point to this very uninteresting story about my
name. At St. Barnabas, when Connie Anestis was trying to get
me fired in 2007, she had told principal Mike Musante that I
changed the spelling of my name so that people searching me
on the internet wouldn’t know I was the person who wrote those
books and spoke at the American Renaissance conference. Now
even a moron who knows anything about search engines knows
that when you type anything close to what you want, you will get
the desired result. If you type Frank Bor--- (and anything else)
my name will come up. Moreover, if I was really trying to hide
my past, I could easily have had all my books removed from am-
azon.com, and American Renaissance would have obliged me by
removing all references to me from their website. The fact is that
it never dawned on me to hide my writings. I’m proud of them
and I didn’t do anything wrong. In my days in education and
specifically the Archdiocese of New York, I never mentioned
my writings in the classroom or even with colleagues. Politics
should be left out of the classroom, I have always maintained.
But invariably, students and teachers would occasionally look
me up and ask me about my writings. Usually it was simply to
say how impressed they were.
Well, at the meeting, Fran Davies asked me about the spell-
ing thing because the reporter Corinne Lestch had asked her
about it. Again, the inquiry was with the aim of attempting to
show that I was somehow “changing” my name to “hide” the
fact that I was an author. Ridiculous. But that’s what corrupt un-
principled reporters do when they have an insidious agenda.
Crucified 33

American Renaissance
One of the reasons given for my firing, and an obsession of the
Daily News, was my connection to American Renaissance, which
was, naturally and erroneously, described as a “white supremacist”
organization (putting aside the fact that the Archdiocese already knew
about my connection to American Renaissance since 2007). Frankly, I
am sick and tired of the unfair and often unchallenged defamation of
American Renaissance, so I will make this my definitive defense of it.
At the Archdiocese meeting, McNiff said worriedly that American Re-
naissance “goes to the edge” and “pushes the envelope.” I did my best
to explain the truth about American Renaissance and will do so here.
I would add as a corollary to my argument the issue of a very
large and well-financed organization called the National Council of La
Raza, a Hispanic advocacy outfit. La Raza, which literally translates
as “the race,” unabashedly promotes and advocates for the interests of
Hispanics. If a school principal was a member of La Raza, not only
would that person not be fired, he would be congratulated and praised.
So it’s OK to join a Hispanic advocacy group, but if you write for
American Renaissance, you get fired. And for what it’s worth, I don’t
advocate for legal advantages for whites. I think all people should be
treated equally. Another double standard on race.
American Renaissance is a 16-page publication on matters of race
and immigration that has been published monthly since 1990. It takes
a Eurocentric, not a multicultural, point of view. It is, as am I, largely
libertarian in its outlook. In other words, while American Renaissance
is often described as “white separatist” or “segregationist,” it does not
advocate the creation of any laws, to be enforced by the government,
to keep the races apart, as was done in the segregationist South. Its
basic point of view is that people should be allowed to live wherever
they want, and when left to their own devices, people – both blacks
and whites – generally choose to live with people of their own race.
This is a demographic fact that everyone knows, whether or not they
will admit it.
American Renaissance is a newsletter, not an organization or an
activist group. Moreover, there are often differences of opinion within
34 Crucified

the pages of American Renaissance. Every two years American Re-

naissance holds weekend conferences with a lineup of distinguished
speakers. I have both written for American Renaissance and spoken at
conferences. Because American Renaissance speaks truthfully about
sensitive racial issues, it has been labeled a “hate group” and a “white
supremacist” group by self-proclaimed “watchdog” groups. These un-
principled, sleazy “watchdog groups,” such as the Southern Poverty
Law Center (SPLC) essentially equate American Renaissance with
the Ku Klux Klan or the Aryan Nations or any other of the various
Nazi or white supremacist groups. Left-wing rags like the Daily News
use the SPLC as a source in labeling American Renaissance (without,
of course, any independent checking of the widely documented cor-
ruption and dishonesty of the SPLC). Weak and frightened ninnies
like Tim McNiff simply buy into it. There are two problems with this
criticism of American Renaissance.
First, the criticisms of it are manifest-
ly untrue. And second, the SPLC is a
disreputable and dishonest organiza-
tion. They have been exposed as such
by honest journalists, both liberal and
conservative, and I will elaborate on
that in a separate section.
I became “involved” with Ameri-
can Renaissance because I am in basic
agreement with its philosophy which,
for the most part, is a standard conser-
vative libertarian view and an honest Jared Taylor
take on cultural differences between
races. Moreover, there is nothing hateful or un-Christian about Ameri-
can Renaissance. In its pages, there has never been a racial slur or an
advocacy of mistreatment of people of different races. At its confer-
ences, I have never heard a racial slur or any similar advocacy. But let
me elaborate even more.
American Renaissance is a publication led by its editor, Jared Tay-
lor. He is one of the finest, most brilliant men I have ever known. He
is a gentleman who has no animus whatsoever within him. Jared was
born and raised in Japan, the son of Christian missionaries, and makes
Crucified 35

his living as an interpreter of Japanese. He is also fluent in French.

He is the author of Paved With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race
Relations in Contemporary America. I remember when I introduced
Jared to Walter Sanchez, my editor at the Leader Observer, who later
told me how impressive a man Jared Taylor is.
Moreover, American Renaissance has had a list of distinguished
speakers and writers. Not one hater on the list, only an impressive
lineup of talented thinkers. It is a list of clergymen, scientists, univer-
sity professors, mainstream writers, and a liberal Democratic member
of Congress, and, of course, me.
Rapaglia and I had discussed articles in American Renaissance a
number of times. I sent him this link to an article in American Renais-
sance about Osama bin Laden, written by Jared Taylor. He emailed
me back, thanking me and calling it “very interesting.” Not a word of
shock, disgust or revulsion by Rapaglia after he read the article. He
wrote:
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 10:28 AM

From: ”Fr. Eric Rapaglia” <[email protected]>

To: “Frank Borzelli” <[email protected]>

very interesting, thanks

--- On Tue, 5/10/11, Frank Borzelli <[email protected]>

wrote:

From: Frank Borzelli <[email protected]>

Subject: good article
To: “Fr. Eric Rapaglia” <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 12:20 PM

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2011/05/bin_ladens_
deat.php

How do you spell B-U-S-T-E-D?

36 Crucified

So who exactly has written for American Renaissance and spoken

at its conferences?
The Renaissance Men

Father Ronald Tacelli

Oh boy, is the Archdiocese of New York

going to be embarrassed by this one. Yes in-
deed, a distinguished Catholic priest has writ-
ten for American Renaissance and spoken at its
conferences. Father Tacelli, a Jesuit, is Associ-
ate Professor of Philosophy at Boston College
and is the director of the philosophy depart-
ment undergraduate program. He is the mod-
erator of the St. Thomas More Society of Boston College, which seeks
to grow in their love for Jesus Christ and deepen their knowledge of
the Catholic faith. St. Thomas More Society members see a strong
connection between loving Christ in the Eucharist and loving Christ
in our neighbor.
Congressman John Yarmuth

Well, is this a shocker? Congressman Yar-

muth is a liberal Democrat from Kentucky who
is a devout supporter of Barack Obama. Plainly,
when he spoke at the American Renaissance
conference, he took the opposing point of view.
But he still appeared. He was treated respect-
fully, answered questions, and treated attendees
respectfully in return. Obviously, Congressman
Yarmuth would not have given the Klan any re-
spectability by speaking at one of its gatherings. The fact that he spoke
at an American Renaissance conference is a tribute to his fairness and
open-mindedness and it also says something obvious about American
Renaissance – that it is a respectable publication that left-wing cow-
ards only fear because it tells the truth.
Crucified 37

Father James Thornton

Father Thornton is an orthodox priest under

the jurisdiction of the True Orthodox Church of
Greece, of which he is Dean of the American Ex-
archate. He is the author of the books Wealth and
Poverty in the Teachings of the Church Fathers
and Pitirim Sorokin: Prophet of Spiritual Renew-
al. He is a prolific writer and is senior editor of
Orthodox Tradition. Father Thornton’s eloquence
can best be appreciated by his own words, which
appeared in American Renaissance: “All men,
from the most noble to the most primitive, have within themselves a
divine spark, the Imago Dei, that entitles each to the special dignity
reserved for children of God. Each is unique in his abilities, in the
gifts that God has bestowed on him, — and this is true also of ethnic
groups — but all are human and all possess a dignity appropriate to
humankind… I must also add a caveat that the formulation of secular,
procrustean ideologies based on race, especially those that deny the
innate dignity of all men, or promote the unjust or inhumane treat-
ment of persons on account of their race, would indeed run contrary
to Christian teachings and would rightly be opposed by traditional
Christians.”

Rabbi Mayer Schiller

Rabbi Schiller is an Orthodox Hasid who

has taught at the Yeshiva High School of
Queens, Yeshiva Avir Yaakov of New Square
and Yeshivat Ohr Somayach of Monsey. He
is the author of two books, The Road Back: A
Discovery of Judaism Without Embellishments,
and The (Guilty) Conscience of a Conservative. His articles have ap-
peared in dozens of religious, political, and cultural journals ranging
from Tradition and Jewish Action, to National Review and American
Enterprise.
38 Crucified

Dr. David A. Yeagley

Dr. Yeagley, the great-great-grandson of

Comanche leader Bad Eagle, calls himself “the
sole voice of conservatism among Indian in-
tellectuals.” He is an author, scholar, classical
composer, concert musician, portrait artist and
political commentator. He frequently discusses
American Indian issues on radio and televi-
sion, and has appeared on The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes
and C-SPAN. Dr. Yeagley has two Masters degrees and a doctorate,
including a Master of Divinity from Yale University; a Master of Arts
in Literature and History from Emory University; and a Doctorate of
Musical Arts from the University of Arizona. He also received a Bach-
elor of Music degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and an
Artist Diploma in Piano from the Hartt School of Music. Dr. Yeagley
has taught humanities and literature at Oklahoma’s College of Liberal
Studies, Oklahoma State University–Oklahoma City, and the Univer-
sity of Central Oklahoma.

Dr. Roger McGrath

Dr. McGrath has taught history at
UCLA for 15 years, before teaching at
Pepperdine, and ultimately California State
University-Northridge. He is the author of
Gunfighters, Highwaymen, and Vigilantes
and contributor to Crime in the West: Then
and Now, Violence and Lawlessness on the
Western Frontier, and Violence in America: The History of Crime. He
has published more than 30 articles, encyclopedia entries, and book
reviews on other topics as well. Dr. McGrath has appeared as an ex-
pert on the Old West, World War II, and the history of crime in the
A&E and History Channel documentaries The Real West, Tales of the
Gun, Save our History - Valley Forge; and a dozen more documenta-
ries on the Discovery Channel, TNT, and other networks.
Crucified 39

Joseph Sobran
The late Joe Sobran was a syndicated
columnist who for 20 years wrote the col-
umn “Washington Watch” for The Wanderer,
a weekly conservative Catholic newspaper. A
devout pro-life Catholic, Joe also wrote for
Human Life Review, and Celebrate Life! He
worked for William F. Buckley’s National Re-
view as senior editor and was a regular com-
mentator on CBS Radio’s “Spectrum” series.
Mr. Sobran was the author of three books: Single Issues: Essays on the
Crucial Social Questions, published by The Human Life Press; Alias
Shakespeare: Solving the Greatest Literary Mystery of All Time, and
Hustler: The Clinton Legacy, a collection of essays with a foreword
by Ann Coulter.
Dr. Robert Weissberg
Dr. Weissberg is Emeritus Professor of
Political Science at the University of Illinois,
Urbana and currently an adjunct instructor at
New York University Department of Politics
(graduate). He has written eleven books, the
most recent being The Limits of Civic Activism:
Cautionary Tales on the Use of Politics and
Bad Students, Not Bad Schools.
40 Crucified

Anticipating the Worst

The ten days between the meeting with McNiff and the day the
Daily News article appeared would prove to be an ever stressful time
in anticipation of what was clearly developing as one of the all-time
hit pieces, a disgraceful and dishonest hatchet job written by Corinne
Lestch, a corrupt left-wing reporter with an insidious agenda. Through-
out these ten days, the only steady force was Rapaglia himself, who
remained calm and cool and reassured me in every conversation that
I had nothing to worry about. In between talking about the impending
article, we did conduct regular school business and I attended the wed-
ding of my 7th grade teacher, which Rapaglia performed at Our Lady
of Mount Carmel Church.
On Saturday, July 23, I received the following email from Corinne
Lestch:
Hi Mr. Borzellieri,

I’m the Daily News reporter who was looking into teachers’
concerns from St. Barnabas. I talked to more teachers, who all
said they had concerns about your views towards minorities
while you worked with a minority-heavy population, and claim
they reported their concerns to the Archdiocese and heard
nothing back. They say kids told them you were going to “write
about them in your book.” The Archdiocese says they’re now
looking into the situation, and that they didn’t know about your
writings detailing the dangers of diversity and immigration
until I brought it to their attention.
I just wanted to make sure I reached out to you and gave you
another chance to comment, since it looks like we are going
ahead with a story -- the secretary at Mt. Carmel said you are
away for a couple of weeks -- why would these teachers have an
axe to grind?
You can email me or give me a call at work at 212.210.2264.
Thanks.
Corinne
Corinne Lestch
NY Daily News
w: 212.210.2264
Crucified 41

“What the fuck?”

42 Crucified

Now you know why I have a libel defamation lawsuit against

Corinne Lestch. Not only is she a grotesque liar, she is also profoundly
stupid to memorialize her lies in writing. Thanks for this great evi-
dence. I can practically do a line by line refuting this animal. She
writes, “I talked to more teachers…” This is a lie, plain and simple.
I contacted every teacher and staffer from St. Barnabas, and Lestch
had spoken to none of them. As the eventual article would prove, she
only spoke to Annmarie Zagaglia, the principal of the St. Barnabas
elementary school (not the high school where I worked), who as I
said, never had a single conversation with me and is someone I never
worked with.
These “more teachers” supposedly “said they had concerns about
your views towards minorities while you worked with a minority-
heavy population…” Well, this of course would defy the laws of phys-
ics because Lestch never spoke to any St. Barnabas teachers anyway
so they couldn’t have “said” this to her. On top of that, none of them
had “concerns” about me, which they could testify to under oath. An-
other Lestch lie.
It gets worse and even more outrageous. She writes, “They say
kids told them you were going to ‘write about them in your book.’”
Yeah, right. Teachers told Lestch… that students told them… that
I told students… that I would write about them in my book. Which
teachers, which students, and which book?
And finally, “…why would these teachers have an axe to grind?”
Well, Corinne, these teachers are going to grind you into mincemeat
when they testify against you on the witness stand.
The only questions now, as my libel defamation lawsuit against
her rolls on, are these: Will Corinne Lestch lie under oath? Because
my St. Barnabas teachers and students certainly will not. And is there
a place in the media for reporters who commit perjury and lose libel
suits?
After I received this email, I immediately emailed Lestch back,
asking her to call me at home. Then I forwarded the email to Rapaglia.
Then I left her a phone message. I absolutely knew that her email was
totally untrue and I knew she was just making things up. It turned out,
a week later, that I was right. When she did not get back to me right
away, I sent the following email to Rapaglia:
Crucified 43

Father,
It is now 1pm and I have not heard from the reporter. I emailed
her at 7:30am based on the outrageous content of her email
to me. I also left a phone message for her at 9am. Of course
it is still possible that she may call, but I believe she is not
contacting me at this point because the article is already set to
go to press and she doesn’t want to change it.
A reporter is never really off duty and will always call back
as soon as possible if they really want information. Although I
won’t speak to her on the record, based on her email I do want
to give her information to counter the ridiculous lies of her
email. But I think she is so biased she will go forward with the
article without getting back to me.
Frank

Lestch finally called me back two days later, on Monday, July

25, six days before the article hit and seven days before I was fired. It
was the strangest and most revealing conversation I have ever had in
my life. In fact, when the conversation ended it began a week of me
desperately trying to counteract all the lies Lestch intended to use to
destroy me.
I immediately told her that her email was so completely untrue
that I knew she had an agenda against me. I came right out and said
that to her. I also told her that it was obvious that she was not going to
write a fair story and that Father Rapaglia and everyone on the inside
(meaning the diocese people) all agreed that she was going to do a
hatchet job. I told her that contrary to what she said in her email, that
no St. Barnabas teacher had ever said those things to her. To prove my
point, I demanded that she name the people. She wouldn’t. She would
only deny that Connie Anestis was giving her the information.
This is a gross violation of journalistic ethics and procedures. As a
professional journalist myself, I know this and I told her so. You can-
not do an article on someone and claim to be quoting people who are
disparaging the person, but not tell the person who the people are you
are quoting. By refusing to tell me who these phantom St. Barnabas
teachers were, Lestch only further confirmed that she was lying.
In another very strange statement that added further evidence that
Lestch is not a true professional, but only a hatchet woman with an evil
44 Crucified

agenda, I invited her to my home to talk with me because I was not go-
ing in to school until the end of the week. She stunned me by saying,
“I can’t do that. I’m just not comfortable going to your home.”
Now even people who are not professional journalists would un-
derstand that this is another violation of journalistic ethics and gross
unprofessionalism. Professional reporters simply do not refuse to go
to a subject’s home when they are doing a story and have a chance to
talk to the subject because they are “uncomfortable” with a person’s
politics. She was treating me like I was a pariah, that she wouldn’t go
near such a “racist” person. That is just not done in journalism. But it
got worse.
She then said to me, presumably referring to something I had
written in one of my books, and with a very accusatory and angry tone
of voice (again, a violation of journalistic ethics and standards), “You
said that some people are inferior!”
I responded forcefully, “You had better be careful with that. I nev-
er said that. What I said was that certain cultures are inferior to West-
ern culture.” I was then very specific with her. “Cultures that prac-
tice female genital mutilation, for example, are inferior to American
culture,” I said. “Democracy is superior to communism. Free market
capitalism is superior to socialism.” I kept giving examples and then
I said to her. “I would rather live in a country run by Barack Obama,
as much as I don’t like him, than in a dictatorship. At least Obama is
democratically elected.” I then challenged her to point out where I
said people are inferior. She was silent. But I knew I was in trouble.
It was in this conversation that I impressed upon her the impor-
tance of speaking to Mike Musante, my principal at St. Barnabas, and
Gary Westhoff, the teachers union representative at St. Barnabas. If
there were any complaints about me from teachers or students, those
would be the two men who would have gotten them, in addition to
Monsignor Barry. I told her I was astonished that I had to be the one to
tell her to speak to those people. That should be obvious to any report-
er seeking to do an honest, thorough job. She said she would speak to
them, and I gave her their phone numbers. I also told her I had a state-
ment from Roy Innis, the black chairman of the Congress of Racial
Equality, and that I would be sending her statements from teachers and
students from St. Barnabas (the very same people she claimed were
Crucified 45

Corinne Lestch is a corrupt left-wing reporter

who is a disgrace to her profession. She is a
grotesque hatchet woman, an animal with
an insidious agenda - a pathological liar who
is stupid enough to memorialize her lies in
writing. The only questions are: Will Corinne
Lestch lie under oath? And is there a place in
the media for reporters who commit perjury
and lose libel suits?

speaking against me but would not identify). I was doing all the work
for her – work she should have been doing on her own.
What I would find out soon, which served even further to buttress
the fact that Corinne Lestch is a corrupt reporter, was that same week
she called Monsignor Barry, the pastor of St. Barnabas. She was trying
to get information from him about me and was repeating the same lies,
that “teachers” at St. Barnabas had complaints about me. Monsignor
Barry knew this was baloney and asked her to tell him who said those
things. Again naturally, she refused. When she wouldn’t tell him, he
said he could not go on talking to her. She hung up on him in anger!
Very professional.
When I got off the phone with Lestch, the rest of this Monday was
46 Crucified

a frantic whirlwind of emails and phone calls to my old colleagues at

St. Barnabas and as many former students of mine from St. Barnabas
that I could reach. I had a very successful day in that regard. I crafted
two almost identical statements, one for teachers and one for students.
Whomever I got hold of signed on enthusiastically, and they would
continue to do so throughout the week. The statements were as fol-
lows:

The undersigned employees of St. Barnabas High School make

the following statement:
“We the undersigned are either present or past employees of St.
Barnabas High School. All of us worked with Frank Borzellieri
when he was a teacher and the Dean of Student Affairs at
St. Barnabas. Never once did we know of any complaint by
either parents or students against Frank on racial or ethnic
grounds. Never once did a student come to us and state that
Frank had mistreated them or discriminated against them
at any time on account of their race or ethnicity. With the
overwhelming majority of students, Frank was well-liked and
respected, despite the fact that he was a strict disciplinarian.
We are outraged that anyone would claim that there were
racial complaints against Frank while he was at St. Barnabas
High School. In a school of many races and ethnicities, Frank
Borzellieri conducted himself with love and fairness toward all
people, in the true Catholic tradition.”

The undersigned former students of St. Barnabas High School

make the following statement:
“We the undersigned are former students of St. Barnabas
High School. For all of us, Frank Borzellieri was either our
teacher, our dean, or both at St. Barnabas. Never once did we
know of any complaint by either parents or students against
Mr. B on racial or ethnic grounds. Never once did a student
state that Mr. B had mistreated them or discriminated against
them at any time on account of their race or ethnicity. With the
overwhelming majority of students, Mr. B was well-liked and
respected, despite the fact that he was a strict disciplinarian.
We are outraged that anyone would claim that there were
racial complaints against Mr. B while he was at St. Barnabas
High School. In a school of many races and ethnicities, Mr. B
Crucified 47

conducted himself with love, caring and fairness toward all

students, in the true Catholic tradition.”

Virtually all of the students who signed on to this statement were

black and Hispanic, which makes sense because that was the make-up
of St. Barnabas High School. The students I had reached were very
helpful in that they helped me in getting hold of other students.
Before the week was over, I read the statements over the phone
to Corinne Lestch. I faxed her the statement from Roy Innis. I went
the extra mile to make sure she spoke to Mike Musante and Gary
Westhoff by giving them her number. As it turned out, Mike and Gary
did speak to Lestch and they both praised me to the hilt in every way.
They were very specific in stating that no one ever made a complaint
about me regarding any racial animus and if someone was doing it
now, that person was lying.
So Corinne Lestch now had two powerful statements from two
very important people who worked with me every day at St. Barnabas
High School – the principal and the teachers union rep. She spoke to
the pastor of St. Barnabas, Monsignor Edward Barry. She had these
two unambiguous statements from both teachers and students. She
had the statement from Roy Innis, the black Chairman of the Congress
of Racial Equality. Yet she used none of it. She only quoted a person,
Ann Marie Zagaglia, who never even worked with me and never had
so much as a conversation with me. Clearly, Lestch knew exactly what
she was doing; that’s why she wouldn’t reveal her source. I will get to
Ann Marie Zagaglia soon enough.
Something else happened that was also very revealing that Mon-
day. As I was getting St. Barnabas teachers and students to sign on to
those great statements, I emailed the statements to Fran Davies at the
Archdiocese to ask her what she thought. Although this seems foolish
of me in retrospect because it was already clear that Davies, McNiff
and the whole diocese apparatus were not going to support me, we
were still ostensibly on the “same side.”
Rather than react happily, that I had gotten something very help-
ful that we could all use to defend me, Davies reacted with hostility,
clearly agitated that I had secured something that was so beneficial to
me.
48 Crucified

In an email in response, she wrote:

Frank,

I am surprised by this. You said there was “no story” here, but
it seems that you are now generating interest in one.

Fran Davies
Associate Superintendent for Communications and Marketing
1011 First Avenue
New York, NY 10022
646-794-2889 phone
212-758-3018 fax

What a horse’s ass! The Daily News was going ahead with the
story anyway. Now I was just seeking to defend myself as best I
could. Yet Davies tried to spin it that I was “generating” the story.
In other words, had I not gotten these statements, there would be no
story. Please. The truth, of course, is that Davies was upset because
the statements were so good that it would make it harder for the dio-
cese to distance itself from me, which is what she really wanted. On
top of that, Frances Dziuma, my assistant principal at St. Barnabas,
contacted me to tell me that Davies had called the school to complain
about the statements.
On this very long day, I also spoke with Monsignor Barry, who
was very supportive, as always. He told me that he had gotten a call
from people at the Archdiocese asking him his version of what had
happened in 2007. He told them that essentially my writings had been
cleared by Monsignor Michael Hull as not in violation of Catholic
teaching, he (Barry) then renewed my contract and promoted me, and
that was the end of the story.
While all of this was going on, Rapaglia continued to be so calm
about everything that he didn’t alter his planned vacation, heading
down south as he does every summer with friends. He saw no need to
stay here in New York just because an article was coming out. Later
that same Monday, I sent this email to Rapaglia:
Crucified 49

Father,

I had an interesting conversation with Monsignor Barry and a

strange exchange of emails with Fran Davies of the Arch. I’ll
explain when we talk, or sooner if necessary.

Frank

He responded:

From: Fr. Eric Rapaglia <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: no update
To: “Frank Borzelli” <[email protected]>
Date: Monday, July 25, 2011, 12:52 PM

ok keep me posted please if the article is finally printed

The next morning I sent him the statements from the teachers and
students. He also saw the names of the people who had signed on,
virtually all of whom he knew from his days at St. Barnabas. He re-
sponded:

--- On Tue, 7/26/11, Fr. Eric Rapaglia <[email protected]>

wrote:

From: Fr. Eric Rapaglia <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: no update
To: “Frank Borzelli” <[email protected]>
Date: Tuesday, July 26, 2011, 9:25 AM

Both of these statements look good. Thanks.

Then on Wednesday from his vacation, Rapaglia sent me the fol-

lowing email:
50 Crucified

--- On Wed, 7/27/11, Fr. Eric Rapaglia <frrapaglia@yahoo.

com> wrote:

From: Fr. Eric Rapaglia <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: no update
To: “Frank Borzelli” <[email protected]>
Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 9:28 AM

McNiff called me yesterday. I’ll tell you about it if you call me

on my cell.

Because he was on vacation, I did not get Rapaglia on the phone

until Friday. It would be the last time we would speak before the ar-
ticle would come out on Sunday. This conversation would prove to be
a treasure trove of evidence against Rapaglia and McNiff. He told me
that McNiff had gotten my books from Amazon and had read them.
McNiff had first told him, “It’s obvious that Frank is very smart.” Mc-
Niff then went on about how excellent my writing was and that it was
very interesting reading. Then McNiff said, as relayed by Rapaglia,
that “some of the stuff could be interpreted as racist.” Then McNiff
proposed to Rapaglia two things that Rapaglia should propose to me.
First, after the article comes out, I would take a short paid leave of
absence. Presumably, that would allow things to calm down after an
anticipated hullabaloo and it would be easier if I wasn’t at the school.
The second thing was that I would sign a statement assuring that I
would no longer write on these matters as long as I worked for the
Archdiocese.
My reply to the first proposal was that I would not agree to a leave
of absence, paid or otherwise, because that would have the exact op-
posite effect of what would be intended. Rather than things “calming
down” because I was away, by taking a leave it would draw attention
to the whole situation. That would become the news – that the princi-
pal took a leave of absence after the Daily News “exposed” my writ-
ings. Better, I told Rapaglia, for business to go on as usual. That would
do more than anything to calm things down. If parents had questions
about the article, we should be there to answer them. Rapaglia agreed
with me completely.
Crucified 51

On the second proposal, I said that I would be happy to sign a

statement saying I wouldn’t write about these matters because I wasn’t
writing about them anyway. In fact, the writings in question I had writ-
ten 10 to 15 years prior. Rapaglia was happy with all that and said he
would get back to McNiff.
What is astonishingly significant about this conversation, and why
I refer to it as a treasure trove of evidence, is that even at that point
– two days before the article appeared – there was still no mention
whatsoever of me being fired. This will come back to haunt Rapaglia
and McNiff, exposing them for the cowards that they are – that I was
only fired because they were embarrassed by the hatchet job article
that was eventually written.
But there was more to my conversation with Rapaglia. We then
had a lengthy discussion in which I was clearly agitated and nervous
as to how this was all coming together. Again, as he had done for three
weeks and as he would do once more, Rapaglia assured me that I had
nothing to worry about. He went into a detailed scenario that he had
talked about before.
“Look,” he said. “I am the only one who can fire you. No one,
including McNiff, can hurt you. If it ever came to that, if they ever
pressured me to fire you, I would never do it unless I was ordered to
by [Archbishop] Dolan.” Rapaglia went on to lay out this unlikely and
hypothetical scenario.
First of all, people have got to understand that pastors in the Cath-
olic Church have ultimate authority. Only the archbishop can overrule
them. Rapaglia explained to me, not for the first time, that if it ever
came to that, that McNiff or anyone else at the Archdiocese wanted me
fired, he would refuse to do it. He even went on about how ridiculous
a notion it was, that it wasn’t even “on the radar.” He repeated that he
would never fire me unless ordered to do so by Archbishop Dolan,
which would never happen. Although he kept harping on the point
that it “would never come do that,” he continued that even if it did, he
would not do so without a face to face meeting with Dolan, with me
also there. And, Rapaglia asserted, “The archbishop would never side
with the lay people at the Archdiocese over a fellow priest, a pastor,
who is actually on scene at the school and knows the principal. It’s
ridiculous.”
52 Crucified

Rapaglia then went even further, saying that if Dolan knew about
everything, I would be in good shape because Dolan is a very conser-
vative guy who would really like my writings.
All famous last words. Famous last conversations.
Later that same day, a Daily News photographer was staking out
my home, waiting for me to go outside to take my picture. I called
Rapaglia back and told him. Yet again, he was calm and cool, say-
ing that the News knew I wouldn’t agree to be photographed, so that
explains it.
Eventually, and with only hours to go before the article hit, I sent
Rapaglia this email:

Father,

At this point I am obviously bracing for the worst. As I left on

your voice mail last night, I gave the reporter Mike Musante’s
and Gary Westhoff’s number. It was a tough decision, which I
put past you first. I believe it was the right decision under the
circumstances. Better to have her speak to them than not. I just
hope she gets them in time (if she really wants to) and quotes
them.
I had a very contentious conversation with her, telling her that
none of us believes she will do a fair story. My experience in
this business is that when they send a photographer to stake out
your house and hold a story until the big Sunday paper, then
it’s their intention to make a big deal out of it.
I am especially concerned about the diocese. That crazy
conversation you had with McNiff tells me how unsupportive I
expect them to be. You are the calmest person in all this. I hope
you are right. Let’s pray on it.
Anyway, just check the internet on Sunday. I guess we’ll deal
with it when it comes out. Thanks.

Frank
Crucified 53

The Roy Innis Letter

This is the original letter written by Roy Innis, in its entirety.
It is one of many favorable statements about me that the reporter
Corinne Lestch refused to use in her article because it did not fit
in with her agenda to defame me.

CORE’s Roy Innis

Defends Borzellieri
“Proud to Call Him My Friend”
By Roy Innis, National Chairman, Congress of Racial
Equality

For those of you who

think you know Queens
politics, I’d like to begin
my comments with a little
quiz:
1. Who is the only
white Queens Republican
elected official to belong
to and work for an overtly
African-American orga-
nization? (This is a tough
one).
2. Who is the only
white Queens Republican
elected official to publicly
endorse an African-American for President of the United States
54 Crucified

in 2000? (Another tough one).

3. Who is the only white Queens Republican elected official
to travel to Brooklyn to work on the campaign of an African-
American in a Democratic primary for Congress? (Another tough
one).
4. Finally, an easy one: Who is the only white Queens Re-
publican elected official to use his vote-getting coattails to pull an
African-American to electoral victory?
To the shock of many people, the answer to these four ques-
tions is all the same person: Frank Borzellieri.
Yes, Frank Borzellieri, who is one that is accused of opposing
the interest of blacks and other minorities, has in reality outdone
his liberal critics in actually getting into the trenches with black
people and trying to help them instead of standing in a glass house
and merely pontificating on the need to help blacks, as most white
liberals do.
I first became friends with Frank Borzellieri close to 20 years
ago when he interviewed me for an article he published in USA
Today about my plan to arm honest citizens to fight crime. Soon
after, Frank became a regular at our offices in Harlem, traveling
by subway to a dangerous neighborhood for causes he believed in.
Eventually, he worked on my campaign for Congress, showing a
spirit and a commitment that energized our efforts dramatically. I
remember how he nearly became embroiled in a physical alterca-
tion with a group of men on the campaign trail who attacked me!
Unfortunately, liberals generally regard any opposition to af-
firmative action or an honest look at the reality of who commits
a disproportionate amount of violent street crime as some form
of racism. This is patent nonsense. Frank Borzellieri has consis-
tently spoken honestly and bravely about racial matters.
Although he was probably best known for his actions on be-
half of Bernhard Goetz, Frank also assisted in helping minorities
like James Grimes and Carlos Hernandez who were victimized by
street hoodlums. It is regrettable that some liberals seek to paint
Frank Borzellieri unfairly simply because he speaks the truth.
Crucified 55

The same people who attack Frank Borzellieri are the ones who
would attack me for also speaking the truth about conditions in
our urban centers. They feel that dissenting voices on racial mat-
ters should be censored.
Frank Borzellieri calls them as he sees them. He is not afraid
to go against political correctness or the establishment, as when
he broke with the Republican Party to endorse Alan Keyes for
president this year, and when he blamed the Wendy’s massacre
on ridiculous gun control laws.
I am heartened by the fact that the overwhelming majority of
readers of this paper support Frank Borzellieri. You are lucky to
be able to read his words of wisdom and I hope you continue to
do so. I am proud to call Frank Borzellieri my friend.

Roy Innis and Frank Borzellieri in 1992

56 Crucified

It was Libel and I was Fired

On Sunday, July 31, the article that was published in the New
York Daily News under the byline of Corinne Lestch was every bit
the unscrupulous, libelous, defamatory hatchet job that I expected it
to be. The various headlines called me, “Principal of Hate,” “White
Supremacist,” and a “firebrand educator,” all lies, and deliberate lies
at that. No quotes from St. Barnabas principal Mike Musante, teachers
union rep Gary Westhoff, no statements of St. Barnabas teachers or
students, no Roy Innis statement.
Rapaglia was quoted, from the interview he gave three weeks
prior, stating that he knew of my views, but didn’t “see any cause for
concern” when he hired me. “I knew him from my last parish,” he
was quoted. “Do I agree with all of it? No. But I think much of it is
valuable and logical and reasonable. A lot of his ideas would actually
benefit minorities.”
Of course, these quotes are what Rapaglia really believes. So why
would he fire me 24 hours later for writings he believes are “valuable
and logical and reasonable” and “benefit minorities.” Ah, well, be-
cause he is a feckless lying coward who completely disavowed what
he originally said and tried to rewrite history to conform to his unscru-
pulous act of firing me.
Sure enough, American Renaissance was referred to as a “white su-
premacist” organization and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
was uncritically quoted, saying I was still “intimately involved” with
American Renaissance, whatever that means.
My writings that were specifically referred to were from my book,
Don’t Take it Personally, including statements that “diversity is a
weakness” and that rising black and Hispanic populations in America
will lead to the “new Dark Age.”
These were exactly the kinds of “sound bite” journalism that
Rapaglia was afraid of and that need a full context and explanation.
Maybe I should have said the hell with the Archdiocese and spoken on
the record to clarify my writings. But the truth is Lestch never would
have been fair no matter what and my explanations would have been
ignored. By not speaking on the record I was just being loyal to my
Crucified 57

employer, the Archdiocese (how crazy is that now?).

Lestch wrote that I was “quietly promoted” to principal of Our
Lady of Mount Carmel, giving the false impression that there was
some kind of secret deal going on. The truth, of course, is that I ap-
plied in the normal fashion, through the Archdiocese, interviewed be-
fore a screening committee, and given the job. But what this further
reveals is Lestch’s treachery as a corrupt reporter.
Finally, the one surprise in the article was that the mystery person
was finally revealed. Ann Marie Zagaglia – and I repeat, I did not
know her, never spoke to her, and never worked with her – was identi-
fied by Lestch as “principal of St. Barnabas School during Borzell-
ieri’s time there.” So the average reader was clearly led to believe that
Zagaglia was my principal and my boss!
Zagaglia was quoted as stating, “You can’t have someone with
those beliefs or who writes that kind of stuff working at a Catholic
school.” Rapaglia was referred to as the “pastor at St. Barnabas,”
which was another lie. Zagaglia then said that regarding “concerns”
about me, “Rapaglia dismissed the whole thing, that was the end of
that.” The strange thing about the libel committed by Corinne Lestch
against me is that her lies are so easy to prove. This was not incom-
petence on the part of Lestch. Not in the least. She is very competent
indeed – competent at pursuing her agenda to defame and destroy me.
Her lies were deliberate, not simple mistakes.
The diocese spokesman Joe Zwilling “said there is no record of a
complaint against Borzellieri, but said the matter is under review.” Ah
yes, the review.
The mystery as to why Ann Marie Zagaglia would say these things
about me really puzzled many people on the inside, putting aside the
gross inaccuracy that gave the impression that she had been my princi-
pal. The whole thing seemed to make no sense, especially to me. Why
would someone whom I never worked with or spoke to conspire with
a Daily News reporter to defame me?
Well, two things. Ann Marie Zagaglia clearly got all her infor-
mation from Connie Anestis, the teacher who tried to get me fired in
2007. But although Anestis was not stupid enough to be quoted pub-
licly, the information still came from her, which is why I’m suing both
Zagaglia and Anestis for libel. Second, Zagaglia was many years ago
58 Crucified

the assistant principal at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the school where
I was principal. I subsequently found out that she wanted my job and
was in a rage when I got hired instead of her. She was furious at Rapa-
glia, who knew her as principal of St. Barnabas elementary school,
but hired me instead. She was not renewed as principal by Monsignor
Barry for poor job performance. Three people in the know told me she
was a terrible principal who drove her school to near-ruin.
And then I received this email from a Bronx principal. I will not
reveal this principal’s name here, but I will with permission, so stay
tuned:

Frank - Hi! Watch your back because Ann Marie Zagaglia is

after your position so fill your pastor in on this. Hang in there!

After reading the article, I was obviously reeling. When I reached

Rapaglia down south, still on vacation, the first thing he said to me
was, “What a hatchet job!”
I then put it to him right away. “Father, where do I stand?”
“Frank,” he replied. “I told you before. You’re my principal.” He
then repeated some of the same assurances that he had been saying for
three weeks. We left it that we would handle any questions from par-
ents and although we were angry about the article, we would speak the
next day. Things stood where they had been standing. But all of that
would change the next day. Twenty-four hours after this conversation,
and 24 hours after the article came out, Eric Rapaglia would fire me.

Where was Frank?

The next morning, the media unexpectedly descended on my

house in Queens. Television reporters were ringing my bell and wait-
ing for me outside. I told them through my window that I could not
speak to the media because of Archdiocese policy. I then called Rapa-
glia and told him I was going to a relative’s home in Commack, Long
Island. When the media could not find me, they went to my parents’
home, but I wasn’t there. So when the news reports ran that night, they
showed me driving away, explaining as I was leaving my driveway
Crucified 59

that I couldn’t talk to the press.

In retrospect, all of this bothered me very much because to the
public, it gave the impression that I was avoiding the press, that I had
something to hide, that I didn’t want to answer questions about my
writings. This, of course, was never true. Pathetically, I was just being
loyal to the rules of the diocese. Oh boy, was that a mistake.
When I reached Commack, I began working on a lengthy state-
ment in response to the article. I imagined that Rapaglia and I would
be issuing some sort of joint statement, so as I progressed in writing
it, I emailed him my first draft. He thought it was good. But when I
called him the next time, maybe an hour or two later, everything had
changed.
Rapaglia was now cutting his vacation short and was driving back
home from down south. He told me that the Archdiocese people had
convened a meeting. All he knew was that the meeting was comprised
of “public relations” people. Rapaglia was participating in the meet-
ing via conference call. He told me that they all said I should be fired.
Well, isn’t that great. No discussion on the blatant lies in the article.
Nothing new revealed in the article, just a rehash of what the diocese
already knew. No discussion of my fine record as an employee. And
presumably no discussion that there had never been so much as a peep
about me being fired until the article came out. Rather than attack the
Daily News for printing such lies about one of their honored employ-
ees, these cowards now decided as a “public relations” matter, that I
should be fired. Although I could not say that I was totally surprised, I
still had Rapaglia backing me up. That wouldn’t last long.
As Rapaglia was making the long drive back home, I spoke to
him intermittently. He told me that he was on the phone at different
intervals during the day with the same group of people. (Right now, I
only know that McNiff and Fran Davies were part of the meeting and,
I believe, Joe Zwilling. But I will find out who everyone was, and
what they said, and how the decision was reached, when they all get
subpoenaed and are forced to testify in court).
Rapaglia told me that he wanted me to meet him that night at
St. Francis De Chantal rectory in the Bronx instead of Our Lady of
Mount Carmel because he wanted to avoid the press. And so I finally
got there at 10pm.
60 Crucified

The first thing he said to me was, “I don’t think you can continue
as principal.”
If I could describe the stunning shock I felt at that moment, I
would. But I honestly cannot put it into words. Not only had my big-
gest supporter turned against me in 24 hours, but my life started flash-
ing before my eyes.
“What are you talking about?” I replied incredulously.
“I just had no idea it was going to become something like this,”
he said.
I responded, “Wait a minute. What about everything you said, ev-
erything you’ve been saying? Is all of that out the window? The article
was all lies. You know that. Nothing new came out. It was exactly
what we expected. Just a hatchet job.”
Rapaglia sat down, emotionless. “There’s nothing I can do for
you,” he said.
“Come on, Father,” I responded. “This will all die down. We’ll do
what we said. We’ll answer all the questions and it will blow over.”
He said, “It’s won’t die down. These racial things never die down.
Look at how people still talk about the Holocaust.”
I’m not kidding. He actually said that.
I said, “You know my career is over. It’s destroyed. Everything I
worked for is for nothing. No one will ever hire me after this.”
He just sat there and shrugged, as if to say, “That’s not my prob-
lem.”
When I told him that I would never resign, he became animated for
the only time that night. “Oh no, they don’t want you to resign. They
want to issue a statement to the press tomorrow, distancing themselves
from you, firing you.”
Oh, so now I get it. The Archdiocese wanted to bask in the glory
of political correctness, showing the world how wonderful they are
for firing such a racist man. (The problem was that they already knew
about my writings five years ago. How would they handle that? I will
tell you how shortly).
I then pressed him on all the specifics that he had assured me of,
that he had promised me. “What about meeting with the archbishop?
So this is it? No meetings? No hearings? No discussions about my
rights as an employee? Just a firing to satisfy political correctness?”
Crucified 61

He repeated, “There’s nothing I can do for you.”

Then we must have sat there silently for a half hour, not moving
or saying anything. I was becoming physically sick.
When I finally left, as I was walking to my car, it was very dark
and remote. Maybe ten minutes later, I got into my car and drove
home. I was genuinely afraid that I was going to crash the car.
The next day, as promised, the Archdiocese went public with my
firing, with the asshole spokesman Joseph Zwilling stating my views
were “incompatible with the philosophy and practices” of the Catholic
Church and schools. (But wait! They had known about those views
for five years. How would they handle that? Like I said, I will tell you
shortly).
In the following days, as if that wasn’t enough, I realized that Eric
Rapaglia was not now, nor was he ever, the man I thought he was. He
was going around telling everyone that he hadn’t actually read all of
my writings. What a liar and a coward.
Two weeks later, I spoke to one teacher at Our Lady of Mount
Carmel who told me, “Frank, I’m telling you right now, no one at the
school believes for a minute that Father didn’t know about your writ-
ings. Everyone knows how close you two were.”
The reaction I received personally was all, naturally, very sup-
portive. Samantha Coogan, a guidance counselor and English teacher
at St. Barnabas High School, wrote the following letter to the Daily
News:
The cardinal rules of journalism are accuracy and fair
and balanced reporting. There was nothing accurate, fair
or balanced in Daily News Writer Corinne Lestch’s piece,
“White Supremacist principal running Bronx school with
majority black and Latino students.” Having taught with
Frank Borzellieri at St. Barnabas High School during the
years in question, I take exception with the claim that Faculty
had “legitimate concerns” about Frank’s political views. His
political views were a non-issue, and they had zero bearing
on his role as a compassionate, caring educator with a heart
of gold. Mr. B, as he was affectionately called, had a genuine
rapport with his students, many of whom were Black, Latina,
West Indian, and Muslim, none of whom ever expressed their
concerns that he was using them as “research” for his books.
62 Crucified

Ann Marie Zagaglia was not the Principal of St. Barnabas

High School while Frank was a teacher there: rather, she
was Principal of the elementary school, a position she was
unceremoniously fired from in 2010. Father Eric Rapaglia was
never the Pastor of the Barnabas parish during Frank’s tenure;
Monsignor Edward Barry was and is the Pastor in residence.
The claims of a former teacher that were reported to the
Archdiocese in 2007 were dismissed as another example of that
nameless individual’s history of intimidation and her attempt
to destroy another person’s career. Frank was not “quietly
promoted” to his current position at Our Lady of Mount
Carmel School; he was celebrated at our annual end of the
school Faculty Luncheon, and sent off with good wishes. I find
it interesting that two of my former colleagues, both of whom
support Frank Borzellieri and strongly dismiss the ludicrous
claims made in the article, were interviewed by the reporter,
yet their comments were not included. The printed word is a
powerful tool, and the pen is still mightier than the sword; I
think Daily News Writer Lestch needs to think twice the next
time she writes a “news” article that essentially attempts to
destroy a man’s reputation with baseless, unsubstantiated
accusations and blatant inaccuracies.

Below is a sample of the emails I received from my former col-

leagues at St. Barnabas High School:

Disgusting! Headline made me wanna vomit.

I didn’t think of Zagaglia. She is close to her I think.
Anyway, keep in touch. Sorry, man....

********************************

Hey Frank,

That article in The Daily News today was a piece of shit.

********************************
Crucified 63

Dear Frank:
Please put my name on the letter. As you know, I am
technologically challenged. So, I will try to send back the
attached. But, if it doesn’t make it, you have my permission
to sign my name. It looks like you may need to use the letter.
I am so sorry the press is treating you in such a bad way. My
heart and prayers are with you. I saw the article in the Sunday
Daily News and was shocked. All the years we worked together
I never heard you say or do anything that would be considered
racist.There were some inconsistencies in the News article. Ann
Marie Zagaglia said that you said things that were disturbing
to teachers and that Fr. Eric did nothing. The article goes on
to say that he was the pastor at the time. He was not the Pastor
and, therefore, could do nothing even if you did do the things
they are accusing you of doing. Also, at that time, we were in
two different schools and as far as I know you had nothing to do
with the elementary school. So, I don’t get it. I had surgery two
weeks ago. So, I did not answer my e-mail until now. I am sorry
that I did not answer sooner. Hope you are managing in all this
mess. You are in my prayers. I am sorry this is happening to
you. My home phone # is 718-xxx-xxxx. You may call me at any
time.
In Christ,

********************************

Hey Frank,
I don’t even know what to say. Please send me a petition or
whatever you need to support you.
Hang in there......

********************************

I saw the STUPID RIDICULOUS LIES about you on facebook

in that article!!!! Yo! people are just so evil and jealous. Gary
told me about a petition that you started..I want in man!!! Let
me know what I can do to help!

********************************
64 Crucified

Dear Frank:
I just heard on the radio that you were fired. I am truly sorry.
Please know that I will keep you in my prayers. I really am
sorry.

********************************

Frank I am so sorry for all your troubles. You do not deserve

all this. You are a good guy and hopefully something good will
come from this. Your in my thoughts and prayers.
My best,

I also received this email from a parent from Our Lady of Mount
Carmel, a black man who is the father of four of my students:

Hello Mr B , how are you doing ? This is [NAME] , parent

of [NAME] , [NAME] , [NAME] & [NAME] . I saw you in
the paper today . I have a lot of respect for you as a person
& a professional , & I’m sending you my support , because I
know that’s not you ! The way you treated my family & I with
respect, I didn’t buy any of the things that was said about you
in the paper ! I googled you & found out that you are a person
that has a lot of positive things to say . The paper only told 25%
of your story ! So I’m looking forward to seeing you in the fall
for the new school year !!!

By the way, in an indication of how everything the Archdiocese

does is purely political, the very same week I was fired, a Catholic
priest in the Archdiocese of New York was merely “suspended” for a
sex crime. Priorities, priorities.
Crucified 65

The Aftershock
In the days following my firing, I was very physically ill. I had
chest pains from, I assumed, my hereditary heart condition and high
blood pressure exacerbated by the stress, a pounding headache, and
stomach cramps. I got no sleep at all. What scared me the most was
the flare-up of my asthma. I was having trouble breathing and was
straining long inhalations to try and catch my breath. Although I am
on Advair for my asthma, I did not have an emergency inhaler. I re-
ally thought that I was going to die. Even worse, I thought I would die
alone in my home and the cops would have to break the door down
days later to find my body. I called my cousin who lives local and told
her to check on me every day. I didn’t necessarily mind dying, but I
didn’t want to die alone and be found days later.
My voicemail was full from all the calls I had received over the
first few days, but hadn’t yet answered. I turned the ringer off the
phone because I didn’t want to take any calls. It was easier if I called
people in my own time. I lost 15 pounds within a week and my face
was sunken in. All of my adult life I have been a bodybuilder and have
even competed. During the summers – this was August, remember
– I always walk around in a tank top, or even shirtless, to show off
my physique. Now I was doing the opposite. I was so embarrassed
by what I looked like that I went out wearing an oversized t-shirt and
sunglasses. My neighbors were great, always offering support and en-
couragement, but more than one told me I had better get to a doctor
fast.
Because my medical coverage would expire in a few weeks, I
went to my cardiologist soon enough. He must have been on another
planet because he did not know what had happened to me, despite all
the media coverage (at least I think he didn’t know because he didn’t
mention it). If he didn’t know, I didn’t have the energy to tell the story.
So I left with a renewal prescription and that was that.
The media craziness died down by the middle of the week. A
few television reporters showed up at my place and I told them that
I would give them all my version of events within a week or so. As
I said, it was bothering me very much that it appeared to the public
66 Crucified

that I was avoiding the press. So I had intended to settle that up after I
finished writing a more complete response. It was my intention to tell
the press the history of this whole story, but most importantly, to show
proof and documentation that the Archdiocese knew all along about
my writings. That very fact is the one thing above all others that the
Archdiocese does not want anyone to know.
Unfortunately, because there were still some things to settle, such
as getting my belongings from school and obtaining the money that
was owed to me, I still had to maintain contact with Rapaglia. In the
conversations I had with him over the next month, I am tempted to
say that he was a changed man. But that would really not be accurate.
“Changed” would mean that once he was a good man and now he was
not. That is simply not the case. He is a bad man who finally showed
his true colors when faced with a pressure situation. But in a figurative
sense, I was no longer talking to the man I thought I knew.
In this handful of conversations, in which we only discussed what
business we had to, he seemed to be becoming increasingly unhinged.
I don’t think it was guilt because a bad seed feels no guilt for his mis-
deeds. Maybe, I thought, he knew that I was the only person in the
world who knew this true entire story and he was afraid I would reveal
it. That, in fact, did turn out to be the case, as I will explain shortly.
An example of Rapaglia losing it was his suggestion to me that
I post a statement on the internet disavowing all my previous racial
views. “So you want me to lie?” I responded. Can you imagine a Cath-
olic priest advising someone to lie? Of course you can. He then said
in a louder, agitated voice, “Well, what are you gonna do to get a job?
Tell them to call Father Rapaglia?”
Can you believe the nerve of this guy? He fires me for reasons
that he knows are false and then deigns to give me career advice. And
the advice is to be a liar like him!
I have already proven that in the past Eric Rapaglia had read ar-
ticles from American Renaissance which I sent him via email, and en-
joyed them and thanked me for them. I want to interject here another
conversation we had in the past when Rapaglia was fawning over my
writings. He was absolutely fascinated by something I had written on
racial differences in intelligence, which is an issue that people are very
uncomfortable with and sensitive about. Specifically, what I had writ-
Crucified 67

ten was a rehash of older studies that focused on the United States
government’s issuance of IQ tests to soldiers beginning in World War
I. What the IQ tests have shown for decades is that on average north
Asians have the highest IQ, followed by whites, followed by blacks.
Whether these differences are a result of environment, genes, or bi-
ased tests is a separate argument. Moreover, if you don’t like these
facts, tell it to the government, not to me. But I bring it up because I
remember very well that Rapaglia was very impressed by it. He said,
“You know, those racial differences in IQ, with Asians having the
highest and blacks the lowest, that can be part of God’s plan.” Today,
of course, I have no doubt that Rapaglia would deny saying it. But
he said it, all right, and we can take lie detector tests if he challenges
me.
I am reminded of that story because in another conversation a
week or so after giving me that great career advice that I should lie,
Rapaglia went off again, his voice rising in anger, about my writings. I
hardly know how to go about telling this story, but I will repeat, Rapa-
glia had already read all of the writings in question. Everyone knows
that and it is easily proven and documented. So any criticism he has
– putting the merits of that criticism aside – is ridiculous. He was now
criticizing writings that he had praised in the past.
He did not identify specifically what I had written, so I can only
guess at the particular article. But he was upset that I had written
something to the effect that blacks, when they are in the majority,
have never created a successful society. What I do recall writing and
what I do know for a fact is that blacks in Africa or Haiti have never
created a successful society, at least by American standards. That is a
statement of fact, if we can agree on what American standards are. In
America, for example, even people designated as poor generally have
television sets and can put food on the table, even if it’s too often just
bread and spaghetti. In Africa and Haiti, starvation and poverty are at
unthinkably disastrous levels by American standards. This is an issue
that requires greater elaboration and analysis, but what is important
here is what Rapaglia said about it after he fired me.
He said, “Even if it’s true, even if it’s true! You don’t say a thing
like that because it hurts people’s feelings! If my mother was fat and
ugly – even if it’s true – I wouldn’t want you to say a thing like that!”
68 Crucified

How do I even begin answering this idiot? First of all, as a cour-

tesy, I will leave Rapaglia’s mother out of it. Secondly, Rapaglia is
once again busted, caught agreeing with my basic point (even if he is
now claiming I shouldn’t say it). Third, there is actually a subtle con-
descension by Rapaglia toward black people here, something I would
never do. If you read between the lines, Rapaglia is basically saying
that black people are too stupid, too immature, and too fragile to be
told the truth. We have to deny the truth in order to patronize them.
Well, that’s ridiculous. If someone wrote that historically in America
most mafia were Italians, my self-esteem wouldn’t suffer. I might not
be overjoyed at the fact, but I accept it as a historical fact. Perhaps
most importantly, Rapaglia’s criticism is asinine on its face. No one
who writes about these things, including me, does so for the purpose
of hurting people’s feelings. My editor wouldn’t have stood for it.
There are important policy implications that stem from these issues,
including affirmative action. That’s why I had written about them.
Rapaglia also chided me for an article I wrote about George
Washington Carver. I wrote that he was not really the great scientist
that legend says he was, but that people are afraid to tell the truth
about him because of political correctness. Once again, Rapaglia did
not challenge the truth of what I wrote, only that I shouldn’t have
written it because people’s feelings are likely to get hurt. There he
goes again patronizing black people, whom he thinks we must keep
the truth from.
Rapaglia had, in the past, told a funny store many times about
how a strange man approached him in a park, inquiring what he was
reading. Rapaglia was reading my book, The Unspoken Truth, which
he now claims he never read. But Rapaglia was very impressed with
an essay I had written in the book condemning the discussion of the
homosexual lifestyle in schools. He wanted to include some of my
information in his Sunday homily, so he sent me this email:
Crucified 69

CARTOON SCALES
70 Crucified

--- On Thu, 6/30/11, Fr. Eric Rapaglia <[email protected]> wrote:

From: Fr. Eric Rapaglia <[email protected]>

Subject: Re: Graduation Awards
To: “Frank Borzelli” <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, June 30, 2011, 1:14 PM

Agreed. By the way, I want to preach on sodomy this Sunday.

Would you have located that good article from Unspoken
Truth?

Once again, with feeling, how do you spell B-U-S-T-E-D?

Let’s not forget that when Rapaglia spoke on the record to the
Daily News, at a time when he couldn’t imagine the fiasco that would
eventually ensue, he made no claim that he had never read my writ-
ings. He praised them, specifically saying my views would “benefit
minorities.” Call Bartlett’s famous quotations on that one! Now he
was telling people and the newspapers that he was “unaware” of my
writings. And in conversations with me now he was criticizing writ-
ings he had previously praised. How can he possibly think he can get
away with all these contradictions, especially when they are all pub-
licly documented and easily provable? I don’t know. Why don’t you
ask him?
Of course the real reason is that he is, deep down, a cowardly liar
who is saying whatever he thinks he has to say to cover his politically
correct ass. I remember many years ago I heard Judge Judy say, “If
you tell the truth you don’t have to have a good memory. But when
you lie you have to keep making things up as you go along, and you
end up looking ridiculous.” In Rapaglia’s case, it’s both lying and hys-
terical brain degeneration.
As time went on, I had not begun to gain any physical strength
back and I was afraid of wasting away. I made sure that I had given
my final confession at St. Matthias Church, where I made my first
confession decades ago. Then I heard from my former students from
St. Barnabas High School. I received phone calls and emails. They
probably saved my life. Although I will not print their names here, my
Crucified 71

babies are willing to testify at any trial. Here is a sample of what they
wrote, all coming from students who are black or Hispanic:

Mr B you were a good teacher...I learned from you, more

than I learned from other teachers at Barnabas....You have
your views, some that I agree with and some that I don’t..You
actually taught us discipline...even if we didn’t like it....I know
about Catcher in the Rye....I dont care about your past, I care
that you taught us, and that your running Mt Carmel to the
best of your abilities. Stay strong. And if those news reporters
come knocking at your door again, call your barnabas girls,
we’ll have your back!! =]
( Your Favorite Student)
Class of 2009

********************************

No problem Mr B ...we have your back...i’ll let my classmates

know =]
Your welcome for the support, I will always support you no
matter the circumstance. You were a phenomenal teacher, dean,
and most of all a great mentor. You helped me out so much
while I was at Barnabas. Thank you for asking about my son,
he turns two on February 12. Time flies by so fast.

********************************

Love u Mr. B and dont worry, ‘09 fully stands behind you ..
Like u always did us! :) if theres anything else, let me know

********************************

Wishing all the best for this to work out for you. If you need
statements from students you know I can write one up :)

********************************
72 Crucified

Wow I’m sorry to hear that that’s happened to you. And I

can’t believe she would even say that. And I agree to say the
statement and much more you were an amazing teacher and
dean, everyone loved you and never once did I hear anyone
complain about you. I will definitely call, or fb message some of
the girls to let them know and I’m sure they will agree with me
and help with no problem.

At about this time, a national Catholic columnist, Jack Kerwick,

came out with a piece defending me on Beliefnet.com. This is what
he wrote:

A Defense of Frank Borzellieri

by Jack Kerwick

Until this past week, Frank Borzellieri was a principal of a

Catholic elementary school in the Bronx, New York. Once word
was released that Borzellieri was a “white supremacist,” however,
he was swiftly terminated.
As it turns out, Borzellieri was, at one time, at any rate, a bit
friendlier with a certain organization — American Renaissance
(AR) — than the self-appointed guardians of our politically cor-
rect orthodoxy believe he had a right to be. AR exists simply and
solely for the unhindered promotion of the free exchange of ideas
Crucified 73

on matters pertaining to race. For this, it has been branded a “hate

group” and purveyor of “white supremacy.”
I am affiliated with neither AR nor Frank Borzellieri. But
no affiliation with either is necessary in order to recognize that
both have been done a great injustice. I am not affiliated in any
way with Rush Limbaugh or Michael Savage, yet this doesn’t
preclude me from appreciating the fact that both men have been
treated most unfairly by the very same “anti-anti-racists” that
have set their sights on AR and Borzellieri: no sooner than he
began his job as a football commentator on ESPN, many may re-
call, Limbaugh lost it for the allegedly “racist” remarks he made
regarding Donovan McNabb, and in addition to being fired after
a similarly short term career at MSNBC, Savage’s “hatred” also
landed him on a list of disreputable types including terrorists and
murderers that are prevented from entering England.
The difference, though, between the Limbaughs and Sav-
ages of the world, on the one hand, and the Borzellieris, on the
other, is that if they live hundreds of years more, the former will
never spend another moment worrying about their livelihoods;
such, however, is far from the case with the latter. Not unlike
yours truly, Borzellieri invested considerable resources in the
way of time and money acquiring an education in a field that
isn’t exactly known for being lucrative. Even less lucrative than
the journalism career in which he evidently excelled in was the
position of a Catholic school principal that he ultimately chose
to pursue.
Yet now Borzellieri is out of a job for no other reason but
that he dared, at one time, to express politically incorrect beliefs
concerning race while maintaining an affiliation of a sort with
AR.
The more one learns of both AR and Borzellieri, the more
this episode becomes at once interesting and disturbing, for you
see, if Borzellieri is a “white supremacist” because of his asso-
ciation with AR, then there is a whole lot of other popular media
personalities and organizations that are guilty of “white suprem-
74 Crucified

acy” because of their association with it. Some of these have a

relationship with Borzellieri as well. This is interesting. What is
disturbing is that thus far, not one of these personalities or outlets
has so much as mentioned the travesty that Borzellieri had visited
upon him, much less defended him.
Let’s begin with AR by focusing specifically on its founder,
Jared Taylor.
This “white supremacist” has contributed articles and essays
to such publications as the Wall Street Journal; the Los Angeles
Times; the Chicago Tribune; the Baltimore Sun; the San Francis-
co Chronicle; the Boston Globe; National Review; and the Wash-
ington Post. He has also spoken at the University of Pennsylva-
nia, George Mason University, Temple University Law School,
Hillsdale College, Howard University, Vanderbilt University, and
the University of Texas. He has taught Japanese at Harvard Uni-
versity and is the author of several books, including a couple that
were met with critical acclaim upon their release: Shadows of the
Rising Sun: A Critical View of the Japanese Miracle and Paved
With Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contem-
porary America.
Taylor made multiple appearances, not just on “conserva-
tive” talk radio, but as well in such left-leaning venues as Dona-
hue, Chris Matthews’ Hardball, Joe Scarborough’s Scarborough
Country, and Queen Latifah’s short lived daytime talk show. But
there is more. As “Edward Bernays” notes in Vdare.com, “C-
SPAN broadcast at least two of AR’s bi-annual conferences and
also two press conferences where Taylor was a speaker.” It is
precisely just these bi-annual conferences, not incidentally, that
Borzellieri participated in — and it is his participation in them
that supposedly establish his subscription to “white supremacy.”
Bernays mentions that when “AR’s groundbreaking Color of
Crime report” was released in 1999, it “was actually discussed on
the Rush Limbaugh Show….” Interestingly, it wasn’t Limbaugh
himself who actually discussed the report but guest host Walter E.
Williams, a black economist who “summarized the report favor-
Crucified 75

ably to Limbaugh’s 20 million listeners.” Taylor even managed

to hold “a press conference at the National Press Club to discuss
the report” that “was widely attended and resulted in a CSPAN
broadcast and national print coverage.” American Thinker’s Rob-
ert Weissberg and Pat Buchanan too are friendly with Taylor and
AR.
However, it isn’t just the aforementioned figures and outlets
that are guilty of “white supremacy” for lending legitimacy to
Taylor and his ilk.
In 1999, seven radio talk show hosts spoke to Taylor’s Ameri-
can Renaissance magazine about their views on race, IQ, immi-
gration, white racial consciousness, and the prospects of whites
being reduced to a minority within the decades to come. It may
shock some readers to discover this, but among those hosts were
Michael Reagan (son of President Ronald Reagan), Michael
Medved, talk radio legend Bob Grant, and two black radio person-
alities, Larry Elder (the “Sage from South Central” Los Angeles)
and Ken Hamblin (“The Black Avenger”).
Time constraints prevent a fuller review of the exchanges
that transpired between AR and these hosts. But suffice it to say,
all seven of them had nothing but harsh words for the politically
correct orthodoxy on these matters. Particularly surprising were
Michael Medved’s comments on these matters. Concerning the
1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act, he said that this issue
demands that we make a choice as to whether we want to pre-
serve “Anglo-Saxon culture” or dissolve it. Medved rhetorically
asks: “Should Anglo-Saxon culture be dissipated or should it be
respected?” As to whether IQ differences between the races are
genetically based, Medved did not flat out reject this proposition
but, rather, replied that the relationship between biology, IQ, and
environment is “too complex” to speak of given “the few lines”
from which he would be quoted.
Yet the point in alluding to this is not to endorse or refute ei-
ther AR’s or these radio personalities’ position(s) on these topics.
It is solely to show that if AR is really “the white supremacist”
76 Crucified

organization that its critics make it out to be, and if Borzellieri is

a “white supremacist” for having consorted with it, then Michael
Reagan, Michael Medved, Bob Grant, Larry Elder, and Ken Ham-
blin must be “white supremacists” too.
As for Borzellieri, if he is a “white supremacist” because of
his association with an allegedly “white supremacist” organiza-
tion, then presumably those who associate with him must not be
too terribly uncomfortable with “white supremacy,” if they don’t
embrace it altogether.
This is relevant, for Borzellieri has contributed to, among oth-
er publications, Newsday, USA Today, and the New York Daily
News. He has made appearances on Leeza Gibbons’, Geraldo Ri-
vera’s, and Ricki Lake’s shows, Good Morning America, Fox Sun-
day, the Sean Hannity Show, and the Alan Colmes Show. In fact
he counts Colmes, an avowed “liberal,” as among his “friends.”
National Review and Human Events are among the “conserva-
tive” publications that have lavished praise upon Borzellieri.
Frank Borzellieri has been subjected to rank injustice and no
one in either “the mainstream” or so-called “alternative” media
has lifted a finger to come to his aid.
Given that the shots to assassinate his character were fired in
the pages of the New York papers, the Fox News crowd especially
must be aware of what he is being made to endure at this time.
And yet there is silence.
If political correctness weakens as the “conservative” move-
ment strengthens, then the abrupt reversal of fortunes that Borzell-
ieri suffers and the refusal on the part of “conservatives” to defend
him constitute a powerful commentary on the true condition of
their movement.
Crucified 77

Politics First, Jesus Last

Eric Rapaglia’s complete capitulation to the evil totalitarian forces
of political correctness was stunning. I had been told years ago that the
Archdiocese of New York was motivated by only money and politics
(and by politics I mean sucking up to those politically correct forces
like Al Sharpton and Corinne Lestch of the New York Daily News).
Jesus, truth, righteousness and Christian charity are not concerns at
all. I was told this by people high up and on the inside of the Arch-
diocese. Bronx principals absolutely agree with that view of how the
Archdiocese does things. But I never included Rapaglia in any of that.
Just the opposite. Rapaglia and I spent a great deal of time criticizing
the politics and political correctness of the Church.
But talk is cheap and I guess you only know a person’s true make-
up when that person is faced with a revealing situation. The first time
Rapaglia faced any kind of real pressure, he folded like a cheap cam-
era. The truth is that for Rapaglia, Tim McNiff, Fran Davies, Joe Zwill-
ing and the rest of those clowns at the Archdiocese, Corinne Lestch is
their master. She is their true boss, as is anyone who puts politically
correct pressure on them.
The only thing that I found humorous in the immediate aftermath
of my firing was the public comments of one Daniel Dromm, with
whom I was at odds for virtually my entire tenure on the school board
in Queens. Dromm was a fourth grade public school teacher who was
always talking about his homosexuality in front of his class. For years,
I was trying to stop him. Dromm was a radical homosexual activist
whom I had dubbed the “hysterical homosexual.” Dromm had once
been arrested for homosexual prostitution in a parking lot on Long
Island. He is so radical that I devoted an entire section to him in my
book, Lynched. Dromm supports, among other things, homosexual
polygamy (legalization of multiple partner unions), lowering the age
of sexual consent for children, and teaching about homosexuality to
children beginning in kindergarten,
I obtained and have reprinted here a drawing made by one of
Dromm’s students. If you look closely you can see in the upper left is
a drawing of Dromm saying, “I am happy I am gay.” Next to Dromm
78 Crucified

is the student himself saying, “Say it louder Mr. Dromm.” Then the
student writes, in part (in incorrect spelling), “I like you Mr. Dromm
because you’re gay... I never had a teacher gay but I’m happy that I do
because I think they are more smart then regular teacher.”

This is the kind of thing Dromm was promoting. Now Dromm is

a city councilman and he was being quoted demanding my firing after
the Daily News article hit. No surprise there. But what was funny was
that he was also calling for Rapaglia’s firing. So here was Eric Rapa-
glia on the same political side as a maniac like Daniel Dromm. Rapa-
glia was, in fact, doing Dromm’s bidding, yet Dromm wanted Rapaglia
fired, too. Ironically funny. As Shakespeare said, whenever someone’s
actions have the opposite effect of what was intended, Rapaglia finds
himself “hoisted with his own petard.” Because, as the Dromm factor
indicates, now all the good people hate Rapaglia for firing me, and the
bad people hate him for hiring me in the first place.
At one point, in preparation for my libel lawsuit, I could not find
my copy of the evaluation that Rapaglia had done at the behest of St.
John’s University, where he gave me the top rating of “excellent” to
every question. So I called Dr. Bob Brasco at St. John’s for a copy. As
Crucified 79

On the Same Side: Radical Homosexual Activist

Daniel Dromm and Father Eric Rapaglia

soon as I called, he said – without any prompting from me, “I guess

you need it for a lawsuit.” He then volunteered, “If you need me, I can
also testify that I spoke to Rapaglia a few times and he praised you
every time.” Thank you, yes.
Soon after I was fired, I was discussing the situation with a priest I
have known for over 35 years. He is from the Brooklyn Diocese where
I live and was first a priest in my home parish of St. Matthias, where I
went to elementary school. He is now located elsewhere in Brooklyn.
He knows nothing of Rapaglia or the Archdiocese of New York, but
was trying very hard, I guess as a fellow priest, to cut Rapaglia some
slack. “Rapaglia is probably just a coward and a weakling,” he said.
“And all his other mistakes stem from those two qualities, such as his
lying and betrayal of you and his desire to ingratiate himself with the
liberal establishment.”
I’m sorry, but I cannot be that generous. My priest friend is quite
right that Rapaglia is a coward and a weakling, but his lying and be-
trayal don’t simply “stem” from those two qualities, as if Rapaglia
is not to blame for everything else. Rapaglia’s lies and betrayal were
very well thought out. They were not impulsive or spontaneous mis-
takes. Those sins are a true indication of the true Eric Rapaglia. Un-
fortunately, this is not all that uncommon in life. There are people we
think we know for many years, and then when they are faced with
an unexpected situation, with unexpected pressure, they turn out to
80 Crucified

be not the people we thought. Jesus, wandering the desert, resisted

temptation. Indeed, the ability to resist temptation is the truest sign of
character. Rapaglia is a pathetic miserable failure in that regard.
I met separately with two other priests, both veterans from the
Archdiocese of New York. These were very interesting conversations.
I will not name them here, but their testimony can be useful.
While both of them took my side in this debacle, I actually be-
came quite annoyed with one of them when I felt he wasn’t giving me
a straight answer. Obviously, as an Archdiocese employee and a priest,
he felt a certain obligation to not be overly critical of Rapaglia. (Isn’t
a priest supposed to stand for truth? Isn’t his loyalty supposed to be
first and foremost to what Jesus would do and not to a fellow corrupt
priest?) Anyway, this one priest kept harping on the kind of pressure
poor Rapaglia must have been under and I lost my patience.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “The guy fired me after years of a good
relationship, after years of knowing all about my writings, after three
weeks of assurances that I had nothing to worry about, and he did so
within 24 hours (!!) of the Daily News article coming out! No meet-
ings, no discussions, no hearings, nothing. Are you serious?”
Finally, this priest admitted that he couldn’t really defend Rapa-
glia’s actions. But then I pushed him further. “And what about this
promise Rapaglia made that, come hell or high water, he would
never fire me without a meeting and a direct order from Archbishop
Dolan?”
“No doubt,” the priest responded. “He could have refused to fire
you. He could have said that it would be an unjust firing based on
politics, would destroy your career, and he could have demanded a
meeting with the archbishop. And he would have gotten it. I don’t
know what would have happened after that, but the meeting would
have happened and it might have saved your job. I can’t defend it,
honestly. He needed the courage to stand up to the pressure and do the
right thing. Obviously, he didn’t have it.”
Although I finally got the truth out of this guy, it just shows that
in the end, priests are people like everyone else.
The other veteran Archdiocese priest I spoke to was more spon-
taneously critical of Rapaglia. He actually said that Rapaglia was too
inexperienced as a pastor, that he didn’t really know the ways of how
Crucified 81

CARTOON ASS KISS-

ING
82 Crucified

the diocese works with the education department. The expression he

used was that Rapaglia “hasn’t been long to the rodeo.” This priest
more easily agreed that nothing at all prevented Rapaglia, at mini-
mum, from getting that meeting with the archbishop. What struck me
more than what this priest said was his manner, his body language and
tone of voice, which clearly indicated that he did not think very much
of Rapaglia.
I told him right to his face, “Rapaglia is a bad man, a bad seed.”
The priest didn’t agree in words, but he didn’t defend Rapaglia, either.
He just stared at me.
During this time, American Renaissance came out with the fol-
lowing article:

Betrayed by His Church

The craven firing of Frank Borzellieri
by Jared Taylor

Frank Borzellieri, who at one

time spoke and wrote frankly on
racial issues—he addressed sev-
eral AR conferences—has been
fired as principal of a Catholic
school in the Bronx. The arch-
diocese, his employer, behaved
in the most craven manner, firing
him less than 24 hours after the
appearance of a dishonest news-
paper article. Frank Borzellieri at the
In recent years, Mr. Borzel- height of his fame as a
school board member.
Crucified 83

lieri has not been active in racial matters, concentrating instead on

serving his students. His six-year record as a teacher and a princi-
pal was exemplary, and he never spoke about race with students or
faculty. He was fired simply for holding certain views and having
the courage to write about them—years ago.
What prompted Mr. Borzellieri’s firing was a July hit piece
in the New York Daily News. Writer Corinne Lestch called him a
“firebrand” with ties to a “white supremacist publication” which
was, of course, American Renaissance. She quoted from his books,
in which he pointed out that “diversity is a weakness” and that in-
creasing numbers of blacks and Hispanics will bring a New Dark
Age to America.
Miss Lestch quoted the Southern Poverty Law Center as say-
ing that Mr. Borzellieri was still “intimately involved” with AR. As
usual, the SPLC got it wrong. The last time Mr. Borzellieri spoke
at an AR event was in 2002, and he has not written for us since a
piece five years ago about the soccer World Cup.

It is the very books the church reviewed—and

approved—that formed the basis of the Daily
News hit piece.
Miss Lestch made much of the fact that the school where Mr.
Borzellieri worked, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, is heavily black
and Hispanic. Naturally, she failed to mention that he is widely
liked, or that during his two years as principal there had never been
the slightest hint of “prejudice” or “discrimination.” Nor did she
note that before his appointment at Mount Carmel, Mr. Borzellieri
taught at St. Barnabas High School and Blessed Sacrament High
School, always earning the highest ratings from students and col-
leagues; no one suggested he was ever unfair to anyone.
At one time, Mr. Borzellieri had a very high public profile.
In 1993, he was elected to School Board 24 in Queens, and was
reelected twice, for 11 years of total service. He was an unabashed
partisan of Western Civilization, and was probably the best known
84 Crucified

school board member in the whole country. He made headlines

when he called a press conference to announce his call to remove
library books that promoted homosexuality and contempt for
America. He also called for the removal of a biography of Martin
Luther King, Jr. that he found particularly mendacious and offen-
sive. He was invited to write essays for USA Today, Newsday,
and even the New York Daily News! He was twice voted the most
popular on the board, and would have continued to serve had his
school board not been eliminated as part of a reorganization of the
city school system.
He spoke at four American Renaissance conferences—1996,
1998, 2000, and 2002—where his witty, upbeat talks were always
immensely popular. By our count, he wrote five articles for AR,
the last in 2006.
Before making a career in the Catholic school system, Mr.
Borzellieri was a columnist for the Leader-Observer newspaper
chain in New York City. His tart columns on immigration and race
created a furor, but were hugely popular, and his editor always
defended him.
It is important to note that there was no incident or even al-
legation that prompted the Daily News article. A reporter simply
hashed over Mr. Borzellieri’s years-old writings and associations.
She had a dead easy job: His record is an open book—no fewer than
six books, to be exact—and he has never concealed his views.
What makes the archdiocese’s actions particularly contempt-
ible is that important church figures knew of Mr. Borzellieri’s
writings, studied them carefully, and officially pronounced them
compatible with church teaching.
In 2007, when Mr. Borzellieri was working at St. Barnabas
High School, the principal, Michael Musante, recommended that
he be promoted to Dean of Discipline. Monsignor Edward Barry,
the head of the parish, read Mr. Borzellieri’s books and sent them
to Monsignor Michael Hull at the Archdiocese for examination.
Monsignor Hull’s job was to vet materials to make sure they did
not violate Catholic teaching. He assured Monsignor Barry that the
Crucified 85

books were fine, and that the promotion should go through. Mr.
Borzellieri later took on more responsibilities as Dean of Student
Affairs, even as he continued to teach English and journalism.
It is the very books that Monsignor Hull reviewed—and ap-
proved—that formed the basis of the Daily News article.
Two years later, in 2009, Mr. Borzellieri was hired as princi-
pal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School. Monsignor Barry, who
had sent Mr. Borzellieri’s books to Monsignor Hull for approval,
recommended Mr. Borzellieri very highly to Mount Carmel’s ad-
ministration:
“I hired Frank in 2006 as a teacher in my high school. From his
teaching position he was promoted to Dean of Discipline as well
as moderator of our high school newspaper. In the three years of
his employment Frank has always been punctual, reliable, indus-
trious, balanced, open to new ideas and a team player with good
communication skills as an administrator. Frank always exhibits a
positive attitude toward the students and the school, all the while
maintaining discipline in the school and living up to the school’s
mission statement. I am sad to have him leave us; however I am
glad that he is pursuing his talents to the best of his ability.”
Mr. Borzellieri’s principal also
wrote a strong recommendation:
“Frank served in the dual capac-
ity of teacher and Dean of Discipline
and performed his duties with energy,
efficiency and integrity. Frank brings
to his work a determination to do his
very best and to serve the interests of
the school and its students. . . . [H]e
gained the trust and respect of the
students who saw him as even hand-
A fine book in 2007
but now “incompatible
ed and fair, and they actually taught
with the philosophy him how to smile while dealing with
and practices” of the disciplinary matters—again, no small
Mount Carmel School. achievement with teenagers! . . . He
86 Crucified

will continue to grow as responsibilities are given to him and

would be a fine choice to lead a school. He possesses the experi-
ence and maturity to do a fine job. I heartily endorse his candi-
dacy for the position.”
In his new post as principal at Mount Carmel, Mr. Borzel-
lieri impressed his new parish boss, Father Eric Rapaglia, who
renewed his contract twice. Mr. Borzellieri was fully expecting
to return to Mount Carmel this fall when he was contacted by
the Daily News. He realized immediately that reporter Corinne
Lestch was going to write a hit piece, and gathered signatures
from former colleagues for the following statement:
“We the undersigned are either present or past employees of
St. Barnabas High School. All of us worked with Frank Borzel-
lieri when he was a teacher and the Dean of Student Affairs at St.
Barnabas. Never once did we know of any complaint by either
parents or students against Frank on racial or ethnic grounds.
Never once did a student come to us and state that Frank had
mistreated them or discriminated against them at any time on
account of their race or ethnicity. With the overwhelming major-
ity of students, Frank was well-liked and respected, despite the
fact that he was a strict disciplinarian. We are outraged that any-
one would claim that there were racial complaints against Frank
while he was at St. Barnabas High School. In a school of many
races and ethnicities, Frank Borzellieri conducted himself with
love and fairness toward all people, in the true Catholic tradi-
tion.”
Mr. Borzellieri even went to Facebook and found former stu-
dents who signed a statement making exactly the same points.
Every one of the students was black or Hispanic.
Needless to say, Miss Lestch was not interested in the truth.
All she wanted was a titillating story about a “white supremacist”
running a school full of blacks and Hispanics. Mr. Borzellieri
had directed her to many people—some of whom she even inter-
viewed—who told her what a fine teacher and administrator he
was. She did not print a word from them, of course, but instead
Crucified 87

passed on rubbish about how he

was still “intimately involved”
with a “white supremacist” pub-
lication for which he had not
written for five years.
This ignorant article prompt-
ed even-more-ignorant bloggers
to rave about Mr. Borzellieri’s
“hate filled belief system” and
to claim that “Frank Borzellieri
doesn’t like anyone who isn’t
white.” Television and radio re- Fr. Eric Rapaglia now
porters piled on, besieging dio- claims he had no idea what
cese headquarters and Mr. Bor- Mr. Borzellieri wrote in his
books.
zellieri’s home.
Miss Letsch’s dishonesty
is no surprise, coming out of the gutter some still playfully call
“mainstream journalism.” But what about the Catholic Church?
Does it not stand for eternal verities? Not any more. Its behavior
could not have been more contemptible. It issued a lick-spittle
statement claiming that Mr. Borzellieri’s views were “incompat-
ible with the philosophy and practices” of the school—the very
views the diocese found perfectly acceptable four years ago—
and fired him on the spot.
Mr. Borzellieri did not even have a chance to talk about the
Daily News article. There was no meeting, no consultation, no
explanation to parents. Six sterling years with the diocese, let-
ters of praise from superiors, statements from colleagues and stu-
dents—none of that mattered to the terrified little monsignors of
the Archdiocese of New York. No doubt they thought not even
the sign of the cross could ward off a charge of “racism,” when
all it would have taken is a little honesty.
As part of his dedication to a career in the Catholic sys-
tem, Mr. Borzellieri had gone back to graduate school, where he
earned two master’s degrees. He has heavy student debts—and
88 Crucified

no job. He also has medical conditions that he cannot treat be-

cause he has lost medical insurance. He would be deeply grateful
to anyone who can send help to:
Frank Borzellieri
Box 780142
Maspeth, NY 11378

Unfortunately, American Renaissance does not have a wide reach

and the article was not picked up by the major press. But I was ready
to go public and give the media these basic details that, to that point,
had not been made public, most importantly the fact that the Archdio-
cese knew about my writings for five years before they fired me for
the very same writings.

The Southern Poverty Law

Center (SPLC)
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a corrupt left-wing self-
anointed “watchdog” group that is always used as a source by unscru-
pulous reporters like Corinne Lestch who want to label people “white
supremacists.” There is so much information that has been revealed
about the corruption of SPLC that only the worst reporters continue
to use them as a source. For lack of space, I am simply reprinting
excerpts here, with permission, from an article by Peter B. Gemma of
the Social Contract Press, which has devoted dozens of articles expos-
ing the truth about SPLC. For even more reading on the SPLC, go to
www.thesocialcontract.com and click on the “Read online” edition of
“The Southern Poverty Law Center - A Special Report.”
In 1971, the Southern Poverty Law Center was incorporated by
Crucified 89

Alabama lawyer Morris Dees as a tax-exempt, charitable organization

under section 501(c)(3) of the IRS Code—making all contributions
to SPLC tax deductible. According to its website, the Southern Pov-
erty Law Center claims to be a watchdog over “hate groups and racial
extremists throughout the United States.” But there is substantial evi-
dence that SPLC is a radical left-wing organization with an extremist
agenda of its own.
Contrary to the organization’s cultivated image as a “civil rights
organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking
justice for the most vulnerable members of society,” Harper’s maga-
zine notes that SPLC’s “entire legal staff quit in protest of Dees’ re-
fusal to address issues—such as homelessness, voter registration, and
affirmative action—that they considered far more pertinent to poor
minorities [because they are] far less marketable to affluent benefac-
tors.”
Harper’s also reported that another lawyer, Gloria Browne, who
resigned a few years later, stated that SPLC’s programs were calcu-
lated to cash in on “black pain and white guilt.” Commentator Don
Feder, in an article that appeared in Front Page magazine, wrote:
“What makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odi-
ous is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them
with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to
make it appear that there’s a logical relationship between, say, opposing
affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government
services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants. The
novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called this “the broad-brush smear.”
The Capital Research Center reports that the SPLC “has mastered
the art of inflaming racial passions, and in doing so, it undermines
Americans’ confidence in the nation’s racial progress. SPLC’s activ-
ism may be too profitable an enterprise for it to give up, but it can have
a corrosive effect on our politics.”
Here’s how the SPLC describes its finances: “Our work is made
possible by the generosity and commitment of our thousands of sup-
porters across the country. We are proud of our financial steward-
ship and dedicated to ensuring openness and accountability.” But the
American Institute of Philanthropy’s December, 2008 Charity Ratings
Guide gave the Southern Poverty Law Center an “F” rating.
90 Crucified

The Baltimore Sun characterizes SPLC operations this way: “Its

business is fundraising, and its success at raking in the cash is based on
its ability to sell gullible people on the idea that present-day America
is awash in white racism and anti-Semitism, which it will fight tooth-
and-nail as the public interest law firm it purports to be.”
In addition, a March 2007 article in Harper’s magazine noted:
“The Center earns more from its vast investment portfolio than it
spends on its core mission, which has led Millard Farmer, a death-
penalty lawyer in Georgia, to once describe Morris Dees, the SPLC’s
head, as ‘the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the civil rights move-
ment’ (adding, ‘I don’t mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye’).”
SPLC’s hometown newspaper, The Montgomery Advertiser, won
a journalism award for a series of investigative articles on the un-
ethical fundraising practices of Dees and the Southern Poverty Law
Center. The articles noted that in a ten-year period (1984-1994), SPLC
spent some $40 million— two-thirds of its income—on its own ex-
penses. The newspaper quoted Pamela Summers, a former SPLC legal
fellow, as saying: “What they are doing in the legal department is not
done for the best interest of everybody [but] is done as though the
sole, overriding goal is to make money. They’re drowning in their own
affluence.”
The SPLC has earned critics from the left, right, and center. Cor-
nell University Professor William A. Jacobson has observed: “I regu-
larly donated to the SPLC. I stopped those donations long ago, as the
SPLC drifted from its original mission into left-wing politics.”
The SPLC campaigns for laws that will effectively deny free
speech and freedom of association to certain groups of Americans on
the basis of their beliefs. Six times a year, the SPLC’s letter boasts, the
center reports its findings to over 6,000 law-enforcement agencies;
then, with no discernible irony, it goes on to justify its Big Brother
methods in the name of tolerance.
Reason magazine, a monthly libertarian publication, contends
“The Southern Poverty Law Center would paint a box of Wheaties as
an extremist threat if it thought that would help it raise funds.” Wesley
Prudin, retired editor in chief of the Washington Times, has this to say
of the SPLC and Morris Dees: “White guilt can be manipulated with
Crucified 91

black pain, but it has to be done carefully. It’s a sordid scam. Some
people would call what Morris Dees does a hate crime, but it’s a liv-
ing, and a very good one.”
Dees has a curious background. The SPLC website describes
him as having “won a series of groundbreaking civil rights cases that
helped integrate government and public institutions.” But the left-
wing Progressive magazine reported that: “Dees served in 1958 as
state campaign manager for segregationist attorney general candi-
date McDonald Gallion and also worked for George C. Wallace.” In
1961, according to Progressive contributor John Edgerton, when some
civil rights activists were beaten by a white mob at a Montgomery
bus station, Dees and his law partner took the case of one of the men
charged—and the legal fee was paid by the Ku Klux Klan.
The inconsistencies abound. As Jim Tharpe of The Montgomery
Advertiser said of its SPLC investigations: “There was a problem with
black employees at what was the nation’s richest civil rights organiza-
tion; there were no blacks in the top management positions. Twelve
out of the thirteen black current and former employees we contacted
cited racism at the center, which was a shocker to me.”
These are only a few of the many contradictions and controversies
associated with the Southern Poverty Law Center. The radical organi-
zation wants to position itself as the ombudsman for those it deems
abused by what it defines as extremists.

Ann Marie Zagaglia, a failed

school principal, was sued
for libel. She conspired with
Corinne Lestch of the Daily
News to pretend she had been
my principal at St. Barnabas
High School even though we
never worked together and
never had a conversation. One
Bronx principal wrote me,
“Watch your back because Ann
Marie Zagaglia is after your
position...”
92 Crucified

No Compassion
As I was waiting for the money I had coming to me from Rapa-
glia, I asked him if he could secure more money for me on the grounds
of compassion because of my illnesses. I have four chronic illnesses,
three of which are potentially fatal if they are untreated. Facing the
loss of my health insurance, and obviously with no job, I could never
afford the medicine that I need. I have a chronic bad back, which is
not fatal, but which people at school observed several times as I was
walking around tilted sideways. Rapaglia had even bought me a spe-
cially-designed cushion for the seat in my office.
But worse than that, I have hemochromatosis, which is a genetic
blood disease requiring phlebotomies; asthma, which is treated with
Advair and a rescue inhaler; high blood pressure and a hereditary heart
condition, which requires regular visits to my cardiologist.
Rapaglia told me to put all this in writing and he would bring
the request to the “appropriate people” at the Archdiocese. This is the
email I sent him:

Father,
I searched online and the cost of a phlebotomy ranges from
$200 to $400 with a doctor per session without insurance. This
was according to the site below. It is a genetic disease….. I have
it, my sister doesn’t. For the asthma, what I found online is that
Advair costs $300 a month without insurance. I have to have
one a month.
Frank

I never received so much as a reply, even in the negative, let alone

extra money or help. That’s your Catholic Church.
Crucified 93

Where was Archbishop

Dolan?
I ask this question both literally and figuratively. At the time of
my firing, Archbishop Timothy Dolan was literally at a conference
in Colorado. I have no idea what or how much he knew of what was
taking place in New York, or when he found out. Figuratively, I was
asked by many people, “Where is Dolan in all this?” Dolan figures in
all this for two obvious reasons. First, it was Dolan whom Rapaglia
swore to me he would go to before he would ever fire me. Secondly,
the archbishop is all–powerful within the Archdiocese.
For those who are not Catholic (and even for some uninformed
Catholics), it is important to understand that according to the Canon
Law of the Catholic Church, the archbishop is a monarch. He answers
to no one but the Pope. He has absolute unreviewable unilateral power
within his archdiocese. He does not have to clear his decisions with a
board of directors or anyone else. As long as the archbishop does not
violate New York law or a legal contract, he can do whatever he wants.
That is why Rapaglia’s promise to go to Dolan was such a powerful
and meaningful one. Archbishop (now Cardinal) Dolan could have
overruled all of this nonsense and simply returned me to my rightful
place as principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Or he could have
made me the principal of another school in the Archdiocese where
there was an opening or an upcoming opening. Dolan has the power to
issue a statement saying to the effect, “Frank Borzellieri was treated
unjustly and unfairly. His firing was a cowardly political act. This is
not justice and it is not what Jesus would have done. Now that I know
all the facts, he is a principal once again.” Or he could have made me
a principal without issuing a statement. It is that simple.
Different rumors floated around about what Dolan knew or didn’t
know. All I knew at that time was that his name appeared nowhere in
the media regarding my firing, which is astounding considering the
magnitude of such a thing – firing a school principal for his writings
amidst wide media coverage.
With no other alternative, I decided to take matters into my own
hands. I wrote a six-page single-spaced letter to Dolan, attaching the
94 Crucified

Roy Innis statement, the article by Jack Kerwick, letters from St.
Barnabas teachers and students, and the letters of recommendation
from Monsignor Barry and Michael Musante. Because I wanted to
make absolutely sure that he received it, in addition to regular mail, I
sent it to Father Brendan Fitzgerald, who is the priest secretary to the
retired Cardinal Egan. Fitzgerald told me he would personally hand it
to Dolan. After I sent it to Fitzgerald, I emailed him to see if he had
given it to Dolan yet. He sent me this email in response:

Tuesday, August 16, 2011 1:17 PM

From: “Fr. Brendan A. Fitzgerald” <Fr.Brendan.Fitzgerald@
archny.org>

To: “Frank Borzelli” <[email protected]>

Frank,
I gave your letter last Friday. Hope you are doing ok. You’re in
my prayers,

Fr. Fitzgerald

This is the letter I wrote to Archbishop Timothy Dolan, which I

now had confirmation that he had received:

To: Reverend Archbishop Timothy Dolan

Dear Excellency:

My name is Frank Borzellieri and by now I am sure that

you know who I am and what has happened to me. I am the
principal who was fired on the basis of a libelous Daily News
article. My pastor, Father Eric Rapaglia, was my biggest
supporter until the Archdiocese schools superintendent and
public relations team put enormous and insidious pressure on
Father Rapaglia to fire me. The firing was exactly one day after
the news article came out. No meetings or conferences with me
at all.
Crucified 95

I am appealing to you to right this terrible injustice. My career

has been destroyed. I have lost everything. I am now in my 40’s
and have spent my entire life trying to reach the pinnacle of
becoming a principal. I attained two masters degrees in the past
two years to further my career and be a better principal. I am
$20,000 in debt because of student loans. Now I have no job, no
prospects, no health insurance and am virtually unemployable.
Who would ever hire me after what the diocese did to me?

All of this happened because of the unjust and cowardly actions

of the Archdiocese public relations people, who cared not a whit
about right or wrong or any sense of decency or justice. I was
fired the very next day after this libelous Daily News article
came out. No meeting, no consultations, no chance to speak
and explain things to parents. Nothing. Six years in the diocese,
and fired after a newspaper article hit – containing information
about my writings that the diocese already knew about.

In my six years working for the Archdiocese of New York, I had

an impeccable and sterling record. I was an English teacher
who was promoted to Dean of Students by Monsignor Edward
Barry of St. Barnabas High School in 2007. Two years later I
was made principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel School and
my contract was thereafter renewed twice. This is the crucial
point: all of these promotions, renewals and recommendations
came after the pastors and the diocese knew all about my
writings, which were suddenly deemed a reason to fire me after
the story appeared in the Daily News.

Excellency, you must know the details of what really happened:

The Daily News article was unbelievably biased, insidious,

inaccurate and unprofessionally reported by a reporter with
a clearly biased agenda. The reporter also interviewed people
who praised my performance in my years working for the
Archdiocese, but did not print a word of those responses. Not
only was the story inaccurate and biased, it was also a non-
story, about writings that go back to the 1990’s and about
which the diocese already knew.
96 Crucified

There are important points to be made:

In six years working for the Archdiocese, which includes three

schools, I had not one complaint made against me by a teacher,
student or parent that I was ever racially discriminatory in any
way or ever failed to treat all people equally.

In 2007, I was employed as a teacher at St. Barnabas High

School. Monsignor Edward Barry not only renewed my
contract but promoted me to Dean of Discipline with the
recommendation of the principal at the time, Michael Musante.
Before the promotion, Monsignor Barry sent the books
containing my writings to Monsignor Hull at the Archdiocese,
who informed Monsignor Barry that my writings contained
nothing that violated Catholic teaching. Eventually, I took on
extra duties at St. Barnabas, becoming the Dean of Student
Affairs and continuing as an English and journalism teacher.

In other words, Monsignor Hull, in his official capacity with the

Archdiocese, officially cleared me to work in the diocese after
reading my books – the same books that the diocese claimed
over four years later disqualified me to work there – only after
the Daily News article came out.

Two years later in 2009, I was hired as principal of Our Lady

of Mount Carmel School. In his letter of recommendation
(attached), Monsignor Barry, who had two years previously
read my books and got the approval from Monsignor Hull,
wrote to Father Eric Rapaglia, the pastor of Our Lady of
Mount Carmel, “I hired Frank in 2006 as a teacher in my high
school. From his teaching position he was promoted to Dean of
Discipline as well as moderator of our high school newspaper.
In the three years of his employment Frank has always been
punctual, reliable, industrious, balanced, open to new ideas
and a team player with good communication skills as an
administrator. Frank always exhibits a positive attitude toward
the students and the school, all the while maintaining discipline
in the school and living up to the school’s mission statement.
I am sad to have him leave us, however I am glad that he is
pursuing his talents to the best of his ability.”
Crucified 97

My principal at St. Barnabas, Michael Musante, also wrote

a letter of recommendation (attached) to Father Rapaglia
in which he stated, “Frank served in the dual capacity of
teacher and Dean of Discipline and performed his duties with
energy, efficiency and integrity. Frank brings to his work a
determination to do his very best and to serve the interests of
the school and its students. He pays careful attention to detail,
is fair-minded, and diligent in record keeping and parent
contact. During his time at SBHS, he gained the admiration
and respect of the faculty for his performance of his duties
– not an easy task given the disparate
personalities at the school during this
time. More importantly, he gained
the trust and respect of the students
who saw him as even handed and
fair, and they actually taught him
how to smile while dealing with
disciplinary matters – again, no
small achievement with teenagers!”

Mr. Musante continued, “Frank

displayed a willingness to learn while
on duty, and often talked with me Michael Musante,
about the correct course of action. Principal of St.
He accepted direction and was good Barnabas High
at learning on the job. The desire to School, 2006-
be the best Dean/assistant principal 2008.
possible has been manifested in his
continuance of his duties and his
participation in a leadership program at St. John’s University.
Frank is a loyal, dedicated person who believed that his job
as a school leader is important. He will continue to grow as
responsibilities are given to him and would be a fine choice to
lead a school. He possesses the experience and maturity to do a
fine job. I heartily endorse his candidacy for the position.”

For the news article that cost me my job, although I would not
speak to the Daily News reporter on the record (out of loyalty
to diocese policy that I not speak to the press), I did provide
her with information that she claimed to be interested in – the
98 Crucified

fact that I once worked for the Congress of Racial Equality

(CORE), a black civil rights organization. I repeat, I worked
for a black civil rights organization.

I provided the reporter with a statement from Roy Innis, the

national chairman of CORE. The reporter purposely did
not use any of this in her article. The statement by Roy Innis
(attached), read in part, “Frank has outdone his liberal critics
in actually getting into the trenches with black people and
trying to help them instead of standing in a glass house and
merely pontificating on the need to help back people, as most
white liberals do. Frank became a regular at our offices in
Harlem, traveling by subway to a dangerous neighborhood
for causes he believed in. Frank assisted in helping minorities
like James Grimes and Carlos Hernandez who were victimized
by street hoodlums. It is regrettable that some liberals seek to
paint Frank unfairly. I am proud to call Frank Borzellieri my
friend.”

The Daily News reporter also interviewed Gary Westhoff, a

social studies teacher and the union rep at St. Barnabas, who
praised my performance there and said that I was always
fair and well-liked by a student population that was largely
minority.

So the Daily News reporter, in addition to having Roy Innis’s

statement, and having interviewed Michal Musante and Gary
Westhoff, chose deliberately to leave out all this crucial and
positive information about me because it did not fit with the
hatchet job she intended to do.

This point cannot be overemphasized: In two years as principal

of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, I had not one complaint lodged
against me regarding any racial or ethnic animus. Nor did I
have any at St. Barnabas or Blessed Sacrament High School.

When the Daily News made it clear that they were going
forward with this story, the following statement was signed by
my former teacher colleagues at St. Barnabas:
Crucified 99

The undersigned employees of St. Barnabas High School make

the following statement:

“We the undersigned are either present or past employees of St.

Barnabas High School. All of us worked with Frank Borzellieri
when he was a teacher and the Dean of Student Affairs at
St. Barnabas. Never once did we know of any complaint by
either parents or students against Frank on racial or ethnic
grounds. Never once did a student come to us and state that
Frank had mistreated them or discriminated against them
at any time on account of their race or ethnicity. With the
overwhelming majority of students, Frank was well-liked and
respected, despite the fact that he was a strict disciplinarian.
We are outraged that anyone would claim that there were
racial complaints against Frank while he was at St. Barnabas
High School. In a school of many races and ethnicities, Frank
Borzellieri conducted himself with love and fairness toward all
people, in the true Catholic tradition.”

[NAMES NOT INCLUDED HERE BUT WERE SEEN BY

DOLAN]

These were the teachers I reached in addition to Monsignor

Barry.

Although I am not in contact with former students at St.

Barnabas, who are now young women in their early 20’s, I was
able to reach a few through Facebook and some reached out
to me. They are all of black or Hispanic origin. Undoubtedly,
many more would sign if given the chance. All the girls have
agreed to speak with anyone about this and they make the
following statement:

The undersigned former students of St. Barnabas High School

make the following statement:

“We the undersigned are former students of St. Barnabas

High School. For all of us, Frank Borzellieri was either our
teacher, our dean, or both at St. Barnabas. Never once did we
know of any complaint by either parents or students against
100 Crucified

Mr. B on racial or ethnic grounds. Never once did a student

state that Mr. B had mistreated them or discriminated against
them at any time on account of their race or ethnicity. With the
overwhelming majority of students, Mr. B was well-liked and
respected, despite the fact that he was a strict disciplinarian.
We are outraged that anyone would claim that there were
racial complaints against Mr. B while he was at St. Barnabas
High School. In a school of many races and ethnicities, Mr. B
conducted himself with love, caring and fairness toward all
students, in the true Catholic tradition.”

[NAMES NOT INCLUDED HERE BUT WERE SEEN BY

DOLAN]

With a concerted effort, I can get 50 more of these young ladies

to support me publicly. I have also attached notes they have
written me on Facebook.

Furthermore, the Daily News in 2001 asked me to write an

opinion piece opposing the public schools’ overt recruitment of
homosexual teachers. If I was such a disreputable writer, why
did the News want to feature my column on their opinion page?

Finally, the reporter in this case has a background of left-wing

activism, as observed on her online resume. This by itself does
not mean anything. There is no reason why a reporter cannot
have very liberal views and still be fair and unbiased in her
reporting. Yet in this case, it is obvious the reporter had an
ideological agenda. Not only was her article terribly biased and
filled with lies, but it purposely did not include statements that
she had in her possession which would have put the lie to her
entire agenda. I repeat, the Daily News article was libelous and
served to destroy my career.

I have written about science, history, sports and many other

topics. The reporter chose to focus on writings from the
1990’s out of context to defame me. If I was really a “white
supremacist” why in the past have I appeared on such
mainstream programs as Geraldo Rivera, Ricki Lake, Leeza
Gibbons, Alan Colmes, Sean Hannity and many others? Why
Crucified 101

was I invited to write for USA Today, the Daily News, and
Newsday? I don’t know of any Klansmen who are treated with
such mainstream consideration.

I have obtained two Masters degrees – in 2010 and 2011 from

both Fordham and St. John’s University in order to better
myself as a principal. All of that is now for nothing. I am in
debt because of student loans and cannot possibly get a job.

In conclusion, I have received nothing but praise from my

direct bosses in the Archdiocese, my pastors, Monsignor
Edward Barry and Father Eric Rapaglia, and from my former
principal at St. Barnabas, Michael Musante. I have a stellar
record of performance and no complaints made against me in
six years in the Archdiocese. I have been promoted three times,
and those promotions have all come after my pastors were
made aware of my writings and after the writings had been
cleared by Monsignor Hull of the Archdiocese as not violating
Catholic teaching. I have worked for a black civil rights
organization, the Congress of Racial Equality and received
the praise of its national chairman. I have shown myself to be
a devout Catholic who loves and shows affection to all people
– teachers, parents, and students – of all races. There is no
evidence or claim ever made to the contrary. Needless to say,
Father Rapaglia assured everyone involved that there were
also never any complaints made against me regarding racial
unfairness at Our Lady of Mount Carmel, where I was also
well-like by students and parents.

Excellency, my firing was purely a political and public relations

decision. It had nothing whatsoever to do with justice or
right and wrong. The Archdiocese knew everything about my
writings and cleared me for employment back in 2007. Only
when the article came out did they fire me. And they fired
me the very next day! No time out, no conference with me, no
meetings. No time for me and my pastor to meet with parents
and answer their questions and allay their concerns. Please
bear in mind, this would have been very easy to do because they
already know me for two years. They were already comfortable
with me as their children’s principal for two years. None had
102 Crucified

any complaints about me.

I have a mortgage that I cannot now pay and I have illnesses

that cannot be treated without health benefits.

Excellency, I want to thank you for taking the time to read this
letter. I am requesting now that I have a private meeting with
you. I am requesting that you restore me to my rightful position
as principal of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and give me life and
my living back. I await your response. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Frank Borzellieri

I never received a response.

Dolan has a reputation as a media star who loves the cameras and
the microphones. But amongst many principals he, like McNiff, is
seen as unresponsive to genuine concerns. So if 60 Minutes or Face
the Nation or Channel 2 News wants an on-camera interview, Dolan is
there as his jolly old self. But when his own employee, his own school
principal, a lifelong devout son of the Church, pleads with him for
compassion, justice and help, he is nowhere.
That’s your Catholic Church. That’s your Archbishop for you.
In fact, I almost vomited when I saw Dolan on Face the Nation,
where he was praising political involvement and the expression of dif-
fering political opinions. He was saying how important it was for peo-
ple to be able to express their political opinions and not be “muzzled.”
He should have added, “Unless you are a Catholic school principal
with politically incorrect opinions that offend Al Sharpton. Then we
will fire you first, and muzzle you second.”
Crucified 103

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, now a Cardinal,

has a reputation as a media star who loves
the cameras and the microphones. But
amongst many principals he, like McNiff, is
seen as unresponsive to genuine concerns.
So if “60 Minutes” or “Face the Nation”
or Channel 2 News wants an on-camera
interview, Dolan is there as his jolly old self.
But when his own employee, his own school
principal, a lifelong devout son of the Church,
pleads with him for compassion, justice and
help, he is nowhere. He never responded to or
even acknowledged my letter.
104 Crucified

Silencing Me and Preventing

Me from Revealing the Truth
For all that I have written, this section of the book is the one that
people of good will and even a modicum of a moral compass may find
the most shocking and disturbing. This is what happened.
It was the last week of August and I still had not gotten my final
pay from Rapaglia. The delay, he said, had something to do with red
tape at the Archdiocese. I impressed upon him the need to hurry. I had
not had any income since July 29. Already a month had passed and
like most people, I live paycheck to paycheck. How I would survive
down the road was one thing, but at that particular moment I needed
money to buy a buttered roll to eat and to get some medicine. I felt
like I was starving. I was actually going to the local Chase Bank in the
mornings (where I have an empty account) and helping myself to their
free coffee and cookies for customers. That’s how I was eating.
Rapaglia had first told me that the money was going to go direct
deposit into my account. Then he told me that it would be a hard copy
check that would go to him first. So this would add days which I could
not afford. At one point in this exchange, he sent me these two emails.
First this one:

I’ll call tomorrow Frank. I don’t know what is causing the

delay.

And the next day this one:

Frank,
The people from IPF told us just now that the check will be
deposited in your account 12 am August 31st. Sorry for the
delay.
Fr. R.

While all of this was going on, I was returning calls and emails
that I had not gotten to, and I was continuing to prepare a statement
Crucified 105

giving my side of the story. I must repeat this because it is crucial.

Throughout this entire fiasco, only the other side of the story was out
there in public – the grotesque lies and libelous smears about me. I
had not yet spoken publicly and the media wanted to hear from me.
On top of that, I was very much bothered by the fact that it seemed to
the public that I was avoiding the press. Even my supporters did not
understand at first why I wasn’t defending myself. First, I was being
loyal to my employer by not speaking, and then I was putting together
my statement and evidence to expose all the lies. The biggest lie that
I needed to expose was the nonsensical notion that the Archdiocese
didn’t know about my writings. They not only knew, they had ap-
proved them and promoted me!
In returning calls, I had a message from the New York Times.
When I called back, I was passed around to a few people and finally
landed with a reporter named Jenny Anderson. It was my intention
to call a press conference within a week or so, but upon speaking to
this reporter I began to tell her the key point in my side of the story
– that the Archdiocese fired me, falsely claiming that my views were
“incompatible” with Catholic teaching, when all the while they had
known about my writings and had found them to be “compatible”
with Catholic teaching, had cleared me to work there, and had in fact
promoted me. I told her that I had proof of this in writing. I further
explained that I was only fired as a matter of political expediency,
because they were embarrassed by the Daily News article.
Jenny Anderson was very interested in the story and we spoke for
about 20 minutes. She told me she would get back to me. After hang-
ing up with me, she evidently called the Archdiocese for their explana-
tion. The diocese had then apparently called Rapaglia to tell him what
was going on. A couple of hours later I received a call from Rapaglia,
assuming that it was about my check. Instead, he was furious that I had
called the New York Times. I remember thinking, can you believe the
nerve of this son of a bitch?
Could he possibly do more damage to me? He had already de-
stroyed my career and my life. And now he wanted to keep me from
simply telling my side of the story. Rapaglia knew, of course, that
this information was a bombshell. The embarrassment that it would
cause the Archdiocese and the Catholic Church would be immense.
106 Crucified

It is preposterous to think that after what they did to me that I would

withhold this information. Why would I? It was beneficial to me and
it was information that cried out to be told, so that a small measure of
justice could be obtained.
Rapaglia was berserk. He knew it would make him look like the
feckless unprincipled coward that he was, and a cruel one at that. I had
no interest in discussing my conversation with the New York Times
with him. Frankly, it was none of his business. I just asked him about
the status of my check. I said that he had some nerve calling me to
complain after what he had done to me and I was the one who had the
right to be angry. I complained to him that the check was late.
His exact words were, “Now I’m glad it’s late because you’re not
getting that check if you’re talking to the New York Times.”
In a story with one disgusting development after another, this
was just off the charts. Rapaglia, knowing I was starving and without
medicine, was now going to hold my check hostage. This money that
was mine, he would not release unless I agreed not to tell the truth, not
to talk to the New York Times. Once again, this pathological liar was
doing the devil’s work.
I couldn’t believe it. I said, “What does one thing have to do with
the other? I have the right to tell my story.”
“It has everything to do with it,” he said. He then became further
unhinged, raising his voice, clearly terrified that I would expose all
this. “You’re giving this information to the New York Times, the one
place that hates the Catholic Church more than you!”
I continued to insist that one thing had nothing to do with the
other and he had no right to tell me whom I could talk to and what I
could say. He concocted some lie about how I had signed something
saying I wouldn’t tell my side of the story, which was ridiculous. The
only thing I signed was a general release. But he had the advantage
because he was the one holding the check.
You don’t need to be a lawyer to know that most of the time it’s
not the merits of the case that matter, it’s simply who has leverage.
Very clearly, Rapaglia knew I didn’t have money for food or medicine
and I was desperate to get that check. He cruelly used that as leverage.
He said, “Go ahead and sue me. See how that goes.” He knew that I
had no lawyer and no money to get one, and even if I did it would take
Crucified 107

CARTOON SKIRTS
108 Crucified

months to go through the courts, time I obviously did not have. I was
stuck.
I pleaded with him on the grounds that he was a priest and could
not behave in this manner. Talk about falling on deaf ears. He not only
wasn’t going to pay me unless I signed an agreement that I wouldn’t
tell the truth, he said now the payments would be in small increments
to make sure I kept my end of the agreement. If I spoke, he would
withhold the next check. Very resourceful.
“I don’t trust you, Frank,” he said. Can you believe this guy? I
said, “Between the two of us, I’m the only one who never lied or broke
his word to the other.” He didn’t respond to that.
Rapaglia became most hysterical on the subject of Monsignor Mi-
chael Hull, who had read my writings in 2007 and cleared me to work
for the Church. “That gets me off the hook!” Rapaglia wailed.
Let me explain what Rapaglia was saying. He was actually claim-
ing to be a noble, selfless person! His point was that since Monsignor
Hull was responsible for clearing me to work for the Church, Rapa-
glia therefore was “off the hook” because Monsignor Hull could be
blamed for Rapaglia hiring me. Huh? Of course, this was patent non-
sense and Rapaglia knew it. By exposing this information, it wouldn’t
reflect badly on Monsignor Hull at all. It would make Rapaglia look
bad because it would expose him as a cowardly hypocrite who fired a
man for political reasons after the Church had approved my writings.
That’s what was making him crazy.
Now what could I do? I was starving and needed that check. I had
no leverage. I told Rapaglia to send me a new agreement and that I
would sign it. Within a couple of hours, I received the new agreement
via email, which was drawn up by some lawyer at the Archdiocese.
When I saw it, I couldn’t believe the wording. It said that I had vio-
lated the previous agreement by talking to the New York Times and
that “maybe” they would consider paying me, and if they did it would
be in installments. That was the last straw. I said to myself, I’m not
signing this fucking thing.
I made a few phone calls to some of my supporters. The outrage
coming through the phone could be heard across the street. Within a
couple of hours I had a lawyer who saw the original agreement and
looked at Rapaglia’s new agreement. I would get that check.
Crucified 109

I never called Rapaglia back and he must have been confused

because he knew I was desperate for my money. He must have been
wondering what I was doing. Two days later he called me, leaving
a voicemail. I had no intention of ever speaking to him again and
instructed my lawyer to call him and tell him that from now on Rapa-
glia is to deal only with my lawyer. Within a week, I not only had my
check in full, but Rapaglia had to cough up even more. Unfortunately,
I had to make certain concessions, which is why the truth is not being
told until now.
Had I only waited a week longer to speak to the New York Times,
I would have had my money and exposed the truth, too. So in the end,
Rapaglia still got what he wanted to a certain degree. But I’m expos-
ing the truth now, and the embarrassment for him will not be any less.
Actually, it’s worse.
No person of any honesty or good will can possibly have any re-
spect for Rapaglia after knowing all this.

Lean on Me

New Jersey school principal Joe Clark became a national

hero when he bravely expelled a bunch of hoodlums from
his public school. Joe Clark was subsequently portrayed
by actor Morgan Freeman in the movie “Lean on Me.”
I went to New Jersey to support Joe at the time, never
imagining that I would one day be a principal myself.
110 Crucified

White Liberal Hypocrites

“Integration for thee, but not for me.”
Honest Eurocentric conservatives like me love pointing out the
hypocrisy of white liberals when it comes to integration. It is the gift
that never stops giving. If there is one thing you can be absolutely sure
of whenever you hear a white liberal espousing the vital importance of
racial integration, it is that the same person lives in a safe, lily-white
community, far away from the blacks and Hispanics that they claim
add such a “strength” to the neighborhood.
The phenomenon of what was termed “white flight” in the 1940’s
and 50’s has been around long since before I was born. It is a demo-
graphic fact of life and everyone knows it. No less an unwilling con-
fessor than the United States government has pointed out what every-
one knows: when the non-white population of a community saturates
at between 10 and 20 percent, whites simply leave. Whites will not
live in non-white neighborhoods in any meaningful percentage.
None of this is news to anyone, and I personally, as a libertarian,
think all people – black, white, Hispanic, or Asian – should be allowed
to live anywhere they want without being browbeaten or forced to live
where they don’t want to.
My big problem is with white liberal hypocrites who claim to
believe in racial integration, who claim to believe in multiculturalism,
who claim that “diversity is a strength,” yet when it comes to their
own lives, their own homes, their own children and their own neigh-
borhoods, they expressly contradict the very things they pretend to be-
lieve by disengaging themselves and their children from the specter of
non-whites, shielding themselves in safe lily-white neighborhoods.
All of this brings me to the white liberal hypocrites who fired me.
Corinne Lestch is obsessed with left-wing racial activism and prides
herself on destroying people who don’t tow the politically correct line
on race. She was hopelessly offended by my heterodox views on di-
versity and multiculturalism. Surely, if there is one white person who
must absolutely certainly practice what she so devotedly preaches, it
must be Corinne Lestch. But where does Corinne Lestch live? Well,
Crucified 111

in Bronxville, New York, a town that is 92 percent white and just one
percent black! No integration or diversity for Corinne Lestch and her
family, just for everyone else!
What about Fran Davies, another blowhard when it comes to the
great wonders and benefits of racial integration and diversity? Any
diversity for her? Yeah, right. She lives in the exclusive town of Bed-
ford, New York, a place that is 88 percent white and 1 percent His-
panic. I guess diversity is only a strength for other people, not for your
family, right, Fran?
Archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling, the asshole who said
my views were incompatible with Catholic teaching is evidently living
more in accordance with my “incompatible” views than the Church’s.
Multicultural advocate Joe Zwilling lives in Franklin Square, New
York, which is 92 percent white and less than one percent black! Oh
my, Joe, how can you deprive your family of the joyous benefits of the
multi-racialism that you claim to believe in so much?
And best for last. Timothy McNiff, the man who, in the meet-
ing at the Archdiocese, was impressing upon me the need to embrace
multiculturalism, and who said “diversity is our strength,” lives in the
lily-white town of Fairfax Station, Virginia, which is 84 percent white
and three percent black! In a hilarious irony, McNiff and his family
live in the same neighborhood as Jared Taylor, the editor of American
Renaissance, whom McNiff thinks is a “white supremacist.” So when
it comes to his own home and his own family, McNiff is much more
liking the choices and lifestyle of Jared Taylor than the lifestyle he
claims to believe in.
Even in the home he has taken here in New York, McNiff has
chosen a spot on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, which is described by
a city website as follows: “For many class-conscious residents, there’s
simply no other place to live. Since the late 1800s, it has been the
place for Manhattanites who value the cachet of their address, as well
as for those who truly appreciate the serenity, charm and rich architec-
ture inherent in the neighborhood’s personality.”
Well, well. “Class-conscious”; “cachet”; “serenity, charm and
rich architecture.” Isn’t that nice. By the way, the Upper East Side is
also 89 percent white and only two percent black. Why not live in the
black section of Harlem, Tim, which is only a few miles away? What
112 Crucified

about the south Bronx or Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, Tim, if di-

versity is such a strength? Why are you assiduously avoiding this great
strength for yourself and your family? And in two different states!
Likewise, Eric Rapaglia only lives in the largely non-white im-
migrant neighborhood of Our Lady of Mount Carmel because he is
assigned there as a priest. His family on Long Island, Staten Island and
Florida all live in white neighborhoods. Is he going to fire them, too?
When I was discussing this hypocrisy with Dr. Bob Brasco of
St. John’s University, he said. “Well, isn’t that always the way it is?
It’s like people who say ‘I’m for the war. But don’t draft my son.’ Of
course they don’t practice what they preach.”
This hypocrisy on the part of whites who push racial integration
on everyone else, yet avoid it in their own lives, has become cliché.
It’s right up there with death and taxes. What they are really saying
when they praise diversity and multiculturalism is, “Integration for
thee, but not for me.”

Opposite page top: Fran Davies is another

white liberal hypocrite who claims to believe in
diversity and racial integration, but in reality
lives in this nice house on Millertown Road in
the exclusive lily-white town of Bedford, New
York, which is 88 percent white and only one
percent Hispanic. No integration for Fran’s
family!

Opposite page bottom: Daily News reporter

Corinne Lestch claims to glory in the wonders
of racial integration and diversity, yet in real-
ity is just another white liberal hypocrite who
lives in this home on Franklyn Place in Bronx-
ville, New York, a town that is 92 percent
white and just one percent black! No integra-
tion or diversity for Corinne Lestch and her
family, just for everyone else!
Crucified 113
114 Crucified

Timothy McNiff is a typical

white liberal hypocrite who
pushes racial integration on
everyone else, but lives in this
beautiful home on Clara
Barton Drive in the lily-white
town of Fairfax Station, Virgin-
ia. It is 84 percent white and
only three percent back. Even
here in New York City, McNiff
chose this luxury apartment
building on the Upper East
Side of Manhattan, 89 percent
white and only two percent
black. No integration for the
McNiff family!
Crucified 115

Archdiocese spokesman
Joseph Zwilling, the asshole
hypocrite who said my views
were incompatible with Cath-
olic teaching, is evidently liv-
ing more in accordance with
my “incompatible” views than
the Church’s. Multicultural
advocate Joe Zwilling lives
in this nice house on Propp
Avenue in Franklin Square,
New York, which is 92 percent
white and less than one per-
cent black! Oh my, Joe, how
can you deprive your family
of the joyous benefits of the
multi-racialism that you claim
to believe in so much?
116 Crucified

CARTOON WHITES 1
Crucified 117
118 Crucified

No Compassion at Christmas
During the Christmas season 2011, I was contacted by Jack Ker-
wick, the Catholic religion columnist for Beliefnet.com who had writ-
ten an article supporting me the week I was fired. He was outraged
when I told him that no one connected to the Catholic Church had
done anything for me and that I was facing life without medical care
and would lose my home. Jack came out with the following column
the week after our discussion, in which he bemoaned the total lack of
aid and compassion I have received, and expertly disproved the notion
that my views are “incompatible” with Church teaching as “nonsense
on stilts”:

Frank Borzellieri: Victim of the

New Orthodoxy
by Jack Kerwick
Frank Borzellieri was the principal of Our Lady of Mount
Carmel, a predominantly black and Hispanic Catholic elementary
school located in the Bronx, New York. This past summer, in spite
of having had a stellar record during his tenure, Borzellieri was
abruptly terminated from the office that he held for two years.
Unlike those sexually abusive priests who the Church har-
bored for decades, Borzellieri is not guilty of any crime. In fact,
he isn’t so much as suspected of having engaged in any criminal
Crucified 119

activity whatsoever. Nor is it the case that Borzellieri, a com-

mitted Catholic, was deemed to have deviated from Our Lady of
Mount Carmel’s Catholic mission.
Still, Borzellieri was judged, and justly, of holding quite
heterodox views. But the orthodoxy from which he deviated is
not that of Catholicism, but that of “Political Correctness.”
Borzellieri, you see, dared to defy the conventional dogma
on race. For this, he was essentially branded a “white suprema-
cist” by the New York Daily News and fired by the Archdiocese
of New York. In early August of this year, the Archdiocese of
New York released a statement in which it said that Borzellieri’s
views were “incompatible with the philosophy and practices of
Our Lady of Mount Carmel School, and with Catholic schools
throughout the archdiocese.”
Borzellieri, I hope to show, is up against an immovable ob-
ject, on the one hand, and an irresistible force, on the other. It
is with the twin titans of Idiocy and Cowardice that he has to
contend.
First, to know that someone is an advocate of “white su-
premacy” is to know practically nothing. To know that a person
is a “jerk” is to know more. Like the term “racist,” “white su-
premacy” is a rhetorical mechanism by which some groups of in-
dividuals have sought to neutralize those racially-oriented ideas
that the politically dominant group deems threatening. Like the
terms “jerk” and “idiot,” it is an all-purpose device. However,
for all of the latter terms’ ambiguity, most of us haven’t any dif-
ficulty spotting jerks and idiots when we encounter them. Such
can not be said of “white supremacists” and “racists.”
Second, while the task of identifying “white supremacy” is
indeed formidable, the challenge of determining what “white su-
premacy” is not is more readily surmountable. One would think
that a “white supremacist” is a white person who either seeks to
be as far away from non-whites as possible or to hold a position
in which either he or other whites can perpetually weaken the
social standing of non-whites—all non-whites.
Yet not only does Borzellieri fail to satisfy this description
120 Crucified

of “the white supremacist”; he blatantly defies it. For one, Bor-

zellieri has chosen to spend his professional life in the com-
pany of blacks and Hispanics—his students and their parents.
Moreover, he has labored incessantly, as a principal, an educa-
tor, and an elected member of the New York City school board,
to guarantee that his black and Hispanic students get a first-rate
education.
Borzellieri has more than a little experience interacting
intimately with large non-white student populations: he taught
English prior to being a principal and worked at other predomi-
nantly black and Hispanic schools before assuming responsi-
bilities at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. There is absolutely no
evidence, or at least none that his accusers have as yet to sup-
ply, that Borzellieri ever so much as remotely mistreated any
students. Moreover, no less a figure than Father Eric Rapaglia,
the man who initially hired him as principal at Mount Carmel
two years ago and who now expresses regret over having done
so, admits that “there was never any complaints from parents or
students about him sent to the Archdiocese.”
This hardly sounds like the workings of a raving, hate-filled
“white supremacist.”
But there is another consideration that puts the lie to the
charge that Borzellieri is a “white supremacist.” In the very
same writings in which he notes—correctly—that, measured by
such indicia as rates of crime and academic performance, blacks
and Hispanics are at a disadvantage with respect to whites, he
also observes—again, correctly—that relative to the same stan-
dards, whites are at a disadvantage relative to Asians.
To put it simply, by the same criteria that his critics judge
him a “white supremacist,” we could just as easily—and much
more consistently—judge him an “Asian supremacist.”
Of course, Borzellieri has done or said nothing to suggest,
much less establish, that he is any sort of “supremacist.” In ad-
dition to his own writings, his detractors cite Borzellieri’s re-
lationship with “American Renaissance” as the basis for their
claim to the contrary. In so doing, however, they only convict
Crucified 121

themselves further of gross illogic.

To argue that Borzellieri is a “white supremacist” because
he associates with American Renaissance and the latter champi-
ons “white supremacy” is like arguing that theism is true because
the Bible claims that it is. The problem here is that the very rea-
sons one has for doubting the truth of theism are precisely the
same reasons that one has for doubting the claims of the Bible.
Similarly, we first have to show that “white supremacy” has any
meaning within the context of American Renaissance before
we can use Borzellieri’s association with it to show that he is a
“white supremacist.” To argue otherwise is to beg the question.
According to American Renaissance’s website, since “race
and racial conflict are at the heart of the most serious challenges
the Western world faces in the 21st century,” it seeks to amelio-
rate misunderstandings by analyzing “all aspects of race, wheth-
er historical, cultural, or biological.” That whites would orga-
nize for the purposes of calling into question the conventional
egalitarian vision of race relations is alone more than sufficient
to condemn them in the eyes of the self-appointed guardians of
our Politically Correct orthodoxy. That they would dare to note
IQ differences between blacks and themselves, and that they
would argue that such differences are predominantly hereditary,
is enough to insure their reduction to non-persons.
One needn’t agree with American Renaissance’s findings
in order to recognize, and respect, the fact that it seeks to ad-
dress issues of real importance. That is, one needn’t agree with
its positions in order to recognize that the fury with which its
nemeses attack it is entirely undeserved, the function of a raw
anti-intellectualism. And that the charge of “white supremacy”
is as unwarranted when made against American Renaissance as
it is when hurled against Borzellieri is obvious once we con-
sider that while American Renaissance observes that whites as a
group have a higher IQ than blacks as a group, it just as quickly
notes that northern Asians have a higher IQ than whites. It is a
strange sort of “white supremacist” that affirms the intellectual
superiority of non-whites over whites.
122 Crucified

Logically, the case against Borzellieri is fatally flawed from

the outset. Perhaps his detractors realize this. Thus, they decided
to resort to brute force and fire him instead of engaging reason.
The logic—or illogic—of Borzellieri’s situation aside, the
real story here is the ungodly treatment to which he has been
subjected by his fellow Christians.
As the Christmas season dawns upon us once more, Chris-
tians the world over are busying themselves preparing for the
advent of Christ. Through church attendance, prayer, meditation,
Scriptural and devotional readings, moments of silence, and,
most importantly, acts of charity, the disciples of Jesus seek to
renew their minds and hearts in joyful anticipation of the coming
of their Lord.
The duty to love one’s neighbor as oneself is no less “great”
than the duty to love God Himself. On this score, Jesus was un-
equivocal. He was equally clear, by way of His parable of “the
Good Samaritan,” that one’s neighbor is any person in need.
Frank Borzellieri is in need. Yet not only has the Church
within which he has spent his life and to which he has provided
tireless service refused to attend to his needs; Borzellieri is in the
situation that he is because of it.
The profession of an educator, especially a Catholic school
educator, is not known for being particularly remunerative.
Those of us who pursue a career as educators do so, then, not
for the money, but because of our desire, our passion, in some
instances, to supply other human beings with a priceless good:
an education. We are ministers of the mind, bearers of the gift
of the civilization—the ideas, the skills, and the traditions—of
which our students are the proper heirs.
The Catholic Church in which Borzellieri was reared gave
him this opportunity to minister to the young. Yet it just as swift-
ly snatched it away from him. The Archdiocese’s position that
Borzellieri’s views on race are “incompatible” with Catholicism
is not only nonsense; it is, to quote Jeremy Bentham, “nonsense
on stilts.” As the great Catholic writer G.K Chesterton remarked,
Crucified 123

contrary to popular opinion, Catholicism not only admits a va-

riety of thought, there is far greater intellectual diversity among
Catholics than among any other group, including and especially
those secularists who pride themselves on “independence of
thought.” Catholics agree on a couple of theological doctrines.
Beyond this, there is no consensus.
Borzellieri undermined no theological doctrines. Even the
Catholic notion of “the inherent and inviolable dignity of every
human being, from conception until death,” isn’t in the least
bit imperiled by anything that Borzellieri had said. This belief
is no more incompatible with the acknowledgment that differ-
ences in intellect and conduct vary among racial groups than it
is incompatible with the acknowledgment that there are intel-
lectual and behavioral differences amongst individuals. If, say,
the assessment that blacks as a group have higher crime rates
than whites as a group can be said to undermine the Catholic
teaching of inherent and equal human dignity, then the assess-
ment that Adolph Hitler was a worse human being than Mother
Teresa—a normative, not a descriptive, judgment—can more
easily be said to do the same.
No, Borzellieri violated the doctrines of Political Correct-
ness, not Catholicism. It is for this transgression that the Arch-
diocese threw him out in the cold.
It isn’t just the Church, though, that has abandoned Borzel-
lieri. He has connections with prominent conservatives in the
media who have turned their backs on him as well. Not a single
self-avowed “conservative” who once associated with Borzel-
lieri, media personalities who are much more known, and much
more professionally and financially well off, than I, has uttered
a single word in his defense. More shamefully, most of these
same people also consider themselves Christian.
Frank Borzellieri is the victim of a great injustice. He is
also a man in need of help. If ever his fellow conservatives and
his fellow Christians had reason to be ashamed, their treatment
of Borzellieri is it.
124 Crucified

Conclusion
This chapter is mistitled because this final section of the book is
far from a conclusion. There is a libel defamation lawsuit filed against
the Daily News, Corinne Lestch, Ann Marie Zagaglia, and Connie
Anestis. I have also put this entire book online. If you wish to write
to me at my po box or via email, I can absolutely be trusted to keep
it confidential if that’s what you wish, unlike the apparatchiks at the
Archdiocese of New York who cannot be trusted as far as you can
throw them.
I can never obtain true and full justice against the Archdiocese of
New York, the Catholic Church, or Eric Rapaglia. That is impossible.
What I hope to obtain is a measure of justice. Simply exposing the true
story and knowing that so many people will be horrified and mortified
by what I have revealed is in itself partial justice. It doesn’t give me
my living back or pay the bills, but moral support from good people
has sustained me as best as anything could through this horrible time.
Many of the people reading this book will not be surprised to find
out that the Archdiocese of New York is motivated solely by politics,
and more specifically, political correctness. But they may very well
be surprised by the magnitude of it. The notion that Jesus or Christian
charity in any way informs the operation of the Archdiocese of New
York is a colossal joke. What the Archdiocese did to me was not a
spontaneous or impulsive mistake. It was a well thought-out, deliber-
ate decision based purely on politics. Furthermore, what the Archdio-
cese did to me was not a minor thing. They knowingly destroyed a
man’s career and his life in order to satisfy their obscene need to suck
up to the intolerant forces of political correctness, those who would
ruin a man for his beliefs – for his thoughts – even if those beliefs
have shown no bearing on his job performance. That makes them evil.
There is no other way of saying it.
The guilty ones at the Archdiocese cannot dispute the facts in this
book. That is why they tried so hard to keep me from telling the story.
That is why they will never debate or submit to lie detector tests. I
hope they try to retaliate against me for writing this. They may think
they have the money and power to do so. So I will update everyone on
Crucified 125

that, too. So to the cowards at the Archdiocese, bring it on. I will con-
tinue to expose everything you do to me, and if you continue in your
ungodly attempts to defame me and prevent me from making a living,
you will be next on my lawsuit list.
Of course it is transparently obvious that anything they say about
me now, or that they have said since they fired me, cannot be taken
seriously. It will be obvious to everyone what it is: a pathetic attempt
to justify – after the fact – the disgraceful and un-Christian injustice
they did to me. The only thing that people will believe is what the
Archdiocese and all my bosses and colleagues said about me before
they fired me – while I was working there, which is, of course, as I
have documented, all very positive. I am very anxious to sue the pants
(skirt?) off Eric Rapaglia and the Archdiocese. I promise if they give
me a reason by further defaming me, I will do so.
They are exposed now, and they will have to face the good people
in the Archdiocese – those people who may not be able to confront
them openly for fear of retaliation or possible impact on their jobs. But
the evil doers will know – will absolutely know – that they are being
talked about privately, and not in a flattering way. I already know this
for a fact based on the feedback I have already gotten. Upon reading
this book, it will be even more pronounced.
Despite my situation, I do feel somewhat relieved by having writ-
ten this book. I do wish to hear from the good people. I need your
continued prayers and support.
Once again, this book is available online at:
crucifiedbythecatholichurch.blogspot.com

I can be reached personally at:

Frank Borzellieri
P.O. Box 780142
Maspeth, New York 11378
126 Crucified

Frank Borzellieri in May 2012

“I was fired for writings that the Archdiocese knew about
and approved – years earlier. That’s what they don’t want
you to know.”
– from Crucified by the Catholic Church

In August 2011, Frank Borzellieri was fired as a school principal

by the Archdiocese of New York because of a libelous newspaper
article in the New York Daily News. What is most disturbing, as
the quote above reveals, is that the very writings that Frank was
fired for were writings that the Catholic Church had reviewed and
approved years earlier. In fact, after reviewing Frank’s writings,
the Archdiocese promoted him three times! Only after the corrupt
Daily News reporter published her dishonest and defamatory arti-
cle about Frank Borzellieri, did the Archdiocese cave in to political
correctness in the most craven and cowardly manner – firing Frank
within 24 hours of the article’s publiction. As further proof of the
despicable cowardice of the Archdiocese of New York, the Church
then tried to suppress the very fact that they previously knew and
approved of Frank’s writings on race and immigration. Now, with
the release of this book, they are exposed.

This is a very disturbing book for those who have been faithful
and loyal Catholics. The Archdiocese of New York is exposed
as a thoroughly politicized organization whose decisions are not
informed by Jesus. Christian charity, truth and justice, but by left-
wing politics and the pathetic desire to ingratiate itself with the
intolerant forces of political correctness.

ISBN: 978-0-9815407-3-3

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