Culture

"Hell" boy denied Catholic education

by Kaitlin | July 9, 2007 at 02:12 pm

1077 views | 5 Recommendations | 2 comments

An Australian couple looking to enroll their son in a private school after he'd been bullied met with an unlikely adversary: God. Yep, that's right--the parents of young Max Hell (is that a comic book name or what?) were told their son was not welcome at a Melbourne-area Catholic school because of the family's surname. This after they took Max out of public school for--you guessed it--being made fun of for his last name. The school later back peddled, but by then the Hells decided to take their son and run to the hills, so to speak.

But before they left, Max lit everyone on fire using only his fingertips. Just kidding!

Officials said the boy had been offered a place at the St. Peter the Apostle school in the southern city of Melbourne after discussions between the principal, the parish priest and the family over his name.

But Alex Hell said he would rather send 5-year-old Max elsewhere because the school balked at taking the boy over his family name.

"We are the victims of our name," Hell said Monday.

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ricknight

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 15:54 on July 9th, 2007

A rose by any other name apparently smells of brimstone. One thing about "Mother Rome" - thousands of years of consistency. -> Good stuff.

Maireid Sullivan

at 21:54 on July 13th, 2007

I've often wondered how the Catholic Church felt about promoting Cardinal Jaime Sin, (RIP) the influential former leader of the Philippines' large Roman Catholic community.

I can imagine he too would have had "hell to pay" at school.

The Hell family could consider a change to the spelling of their name. Hello! That could be fun!