Father Lou Aiello |
Father Lou Aiello, a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse for twenty-seven years, was ordained on May 7, 1977 at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Syracuse, New York. He grew up with two sisters and a brother on the North Side of Syracuse where his mother still resides in their family home. His home parish is St. John the Baptist where he attended both Catholic elementary and high school at St. John The Baptist Academy, graduating from there in 1967. He attended LeMoyne College where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1971. Following college he taught high school English and worked with children adjudicated as youthful offenders by the city courts. It was his work with juvenile delinquents (and his empathy for them as socially abandoned and disadvantaged) that led him to ministry. In 1974 Father Aiello began his studies for the priesthood under the tutelage of the Franciscan Friars at Christ the King Seminary, St. Bonaventure University where he received his Master of Divinity and a Master of Sacred Theology.
Father Aiello was assigned as an associate pastor at St. James Church in Cazenovia for the first six years of his priesthood from 1977 until 1983 and later at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Syracuse until 1987. By invitation of the Bishop, he returned to graduate studies and served weekends at St. Mary’s Church in Cleveland and St. Bernadette’s Church in Constantia while studying for his doctorate from 1987 until 1991. He received a Master of Philosophy and interdisciplinary doctorate in Philosophical Foundations of Education and Religious Studies at Syracuse University. His concentration of study and dissertation is on the social philosophy of parish life.
Father Lou, as he prefers to be called, was pastor of St. Leo’s in Tully, NY and St. Patrick’s in Otisco, NY from July 1991until June 2003 before his present assignment as pastor of St. Charles Borromeo in July of 2003. He is also the Director of the Office of Deacon Formation and formerly the Director of Religious Education for the Diocese of Syracuse. Besides his pastoral and administrative work within the Diocese, he has been a consultant through the Institute for Pastoral Growth to more than one hundred parishes within and outside the Diocese of Syracuse for more than 15 years. However, his first and foremost love is parish life where he is deeply committed to the spiritual growth and development of the children and youth of his parish. |
