Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 8, 1995 TAG: 9507110027
SECTION: RELIGION PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY PEMBERTON ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: BALTIMORE LENGTH: Medium
``Come on now, quiet down,'' he implores his boisterous eighth-graders.
The boys stop jabbing each other and the girls stop whispering and fiddling with their hair. They look toward their teacher.
``What is a vocation? A vocation is something that God calls you to do,'' he tells his class.
``Do you know right off what you're born to do?''
The students shake their heads no.
``That's right, God can call you to do different things at different times.''
Richard J. Bozzelli was poised to join Washington's high-ranking legal circles when he heard the call, and traded the executive offices at the Federal Communication Commission for two rooms in the rectory of The Shrine of the Little Flower in a blue collar neighborhood of northeast Baltimore.
``That to me is the joy of the priesthood,'' Bozzelli said. ``If you are open to the Holy Spirit, it will take you where it will take you, not necessarily where you think you will go.''
Bozzelli, 34, describes his decision to become a Catholic priest as a slow turning toward God.
``I would have loved to have had that vision where someone comes down and says, `You are going to be a priest,' but it didn't happen like that,'' he said. ``Conversion was not a one-time event.''
For years he tried to keep religion his hobby, but he says God kept tugging at his sleeve.
When Bozzelli was a student of political science at Johns Hopkins University, he taught children to read in the projects of east Baltimore.
In his spare time at Harvard Law School, he built model planes and played video games with an 11-year-old in need of a father figure.
After putting in long hours as special assistant to the general counsel at the FCC, he trekked down to the local soup kitchen, where he chopped vegetables and mopped floors.
Diane Killory, who hired him at the FCC, said if Bozzelli had stayed in law, he would have been hugely successful.
``He is brilliant,'' said Killory, a Washington lawyer in private practice. ``He is the smartest lawyer who ever worked for me.''
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1985, Bozzelli joined the Baltimore law firm of Piper & Marbury. Two years later, he joined the FCC, where he was offered numerous promotions, but turned them down.
By the time he made his decision to become a priest he thought it was too late.
``Ultimately, I said, `Why don't you just grow up and do what you want to regardless of what people think about it?' ''
His decision came as a surprise to his family. When he called his two sisters in 1988 to tell them he had big news, they both thought he was getting married.
His father was skeptical until he saw the change in his son.
``All my family and friends could see how happy I'd become,'' he said.
Bozzelli entered St. Mary's Seminary and University in September 1989 and graduated four years later. He was ordained in June 1994.
He scoffs at the idea that he became a priest to escape the rigors of political life in Washington.
``I didn't escape,'' he said. ``God created the world to be lived in. You find God in the things you do every day.''
Bozzelli's sermons aren't always embraced by his parishoners. He talks about what can be done about the `For Sale' signs peppering the neighborhood. He encourages his parishioners to welcome black families moving in.
``I've been criticized. I've had people come up to me and say, `Father, we come here to get away from this,' '' he said.
To keep parishioners receptive, he'll throw in jokes or use a computer dictionary software program to talk about the meaning of Christian love.
His greatest challenge so far is finding enough time for himself.
Bozzelli's one indulgence is season tickets to the Kennedy Center in Washington. Occasionally he squeezes in a $1.75 movie at the neighborhood cinema.
``One of the things I gave up is that I am not my own person anymore,'' he said. ``The community has a claim on me.
``What I show them is that I can be a faithful friend to them.''
by CNB