The Rev. Francis J. Ciliberti, 93, a former Catholic high school teacher, died of cerebral vascular disease Saturday at the Regina Nursing Center in Norristown.
A priest of the Norbertine Order, he resided at Immaculate Conception Priory in Middletown, Del.
From 1941 to 1962, except for one year, Father Ciliberti taught Latin and religion at Southeast Catholic High School, now SS. John Neumann and Maria Goretti Catholic High School.
In 1946, he taught at Archmere Academy in Claymont, Del. Both schools were staffed during those years by the Norbertines.
In 1954, Father Ciliberti founded the Norbertine Seminary Guild Association in Philadelphia, a local fund-raising arm of his religious order.
When he stopped teaching in 1962, he became the full-time director of that agency, a position he held until he retired in 1999. He was also the assistant chaplain at St. Agnes Hospital from 1980 until 1999.
A South Philadelphia native, Father Ciliberti graduated from Southeast High in 1937 and entered the Norbertine Order in 1938.
He earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy from St. Norbert College in DePere, Wis., in 1941, was ordained on June 17, 1944, and celebrated his first Mass the next day at St. Rita of Cascia Church in South Philadelphia.
Father Ciliberti was stationed at two South Philadelphia parishes: St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, the nation's first church focused on Italian Americans, which closed in 2000, and St. Thomas Aquinas.
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