When he re­ceived a re­cent call from the Vat­i­can rep­re­sen­ta­tive to this coun­try, Mon­signor Larry J. Ku­lick thought he might be re­ceiv­ing an up­date on the search for a new leader of the Roman Cath­o­lic Dio­cese of Greens­burg.

Mon­signor Ku­lick had been serv­ing as ad­min­is­tra­tor of the di­o­cese since Sep­tem­ber, when pre­vi­ous Bishop Edward Male­sic be­came bishop of Cleve­land.

What Mon­signor Ku­lick didn’t ex­pect was that he would get the as­sign­ment him­self — that Pope Francis had named him the next bishop of Greens­burg.

It was the ec­cle­si­as­ti­cal equiv­a­lent of of­fer­ing a per­ma­nent job to the temp.

“What I heard so clearly was an in­vi­ta­tion to serve” and as a “tre­men­dous bo­nus and bless­ing, to con­tinue to serve in the Dio­cese of Greens­burg,” he said Fri­day at a news con­fer­ence at Christ Our Shep­herd Center, a church con­fer­ence cen­ter in Greens­burg.

While bish­ops are typ­i­cally ap­pointed from out­side of a di­o­cese, it’s not rare to have a na­tive of that di­o­cese be­come its bishop. The most re­cent two bish­ops of the Dio­cese of Pitts­burgh, David Zubik and Don­ald Wuerl, grew up and be­came priests in that di­o­cese, but re­turned home only af­ter each served as bishop in an­other di­o­cese.

But Mon­signor Ku­lick said it’s more un­usual for a priest to be ap­pointed di­rectly from within a di­o­cese and for a tem­po­rary ad­min­is­tra­tor to find his care­taker role turned into a per­ma­nent one.

He said it may re­flect Pope Francis’ em­pha­sis on pas­to­ral lead­ers — “to have bish­ops be­ing named who are from their own di­o­cese, who know their di­o­cese and who are called to shep­herd in the di­o­cese they were raised and served in.”

Mon­signor Ku­lick, 54, will be or­dained and in­stalled as bishop on Feb. 11 at Blessed Sac­ra­ment Ca­the­dral in Greens­burg, ac­cord­ing to the di­o­cese.

“This is the di­o­cese in which I was born, bap­tized, re­ceived all of my sac­ra­ments, was or­dained and served as a priest for 28 years,” he said. “I do not un­der­es­ti­mate this priv­i­lege, nor do I take it lightly. I prom­ise our Holy Father and each of you that I will strive to ... be the best shep­herd I can.”

A na­tive of Leech­burg, he grew up at the for­mer St. Martha Par­ish, an eth­nic Slo­vak con­gre­ga­tion where he de­vel­oped his af­fin­ity for Slo­vak re­li­gious and cul­tural tra­di­tions. He grad­u­ated from St. Joseph High School in the Natrona Heights sec­tion of Har­ri­son, Saint Vin­cent Col­lege and Saint Vin­cent Sem­i­nary.

Mon­signor Ku­lick is a canon law­yer and has served as the pas­tor at St. James Church in New Al­ex­an­dria since 2012. He’s a clas­sic-car en­thu­si­ast, with an af­fin­ity for Pon­ti­acs, which he has brought to the par­ish’s an­nual car cruises.

The term mon­signor is an hon­or­ific usu­ally given to a priest who has per­formed an im­por­tant ser­vice or holds an im­por­tant po­si­tion.

He will be the sixth bishop to lead the di­o­cese. The first five came from other di­o­ceses in Penn­syl­va­nia.

The Rev. Tho­mas Reese, a Reli­gion News Ser­vice col­um­nist, said ap­point­ments such as this have some prece­dent. “A di­oc­e­san ad­min­is­tra­tor is nor­mally some­one with com­pe­tence and stand­ing in the di­o­cese, so he would be a some­one who would be con­sid­ered a can­di­date,” said Father Reese, a priest and au­thor of books on the Cath­o­lic hi­er­ar­chy.

The Greens­burg Dio­cese in­cludes 78 par­ishes in Arm­strong, Fay­ette, In­di­ana and West­more­land coun­ties.

It has 126,649 Cath­o­lics, ac­cord­ing to the 2020 Of­fi­cial Cath­o­lic Direc­tory. Like many Cath­o­lic di­o­ceses in the re­gion, its ranks of mem­bers have been aging and de­creas­ing amid de­mo­graphic shifts and grow­ing sec­u­lar­i­za­tion. The church has lost 14% of mem­bers in the past five years and nearly a third in the past 20 years.

For those who have been ac­tive in their par­ishes, he ap­pealed to them to con­tinue to be so and to ex­pand their work where they can.

He apol­o­gized to vic­tims of sex­ual abuse, say­ing he has met “face to face” with sur­vi­vors and would do what he could to help them and pre­vent fu­ture abuse.

The di­o­cese was one of six named in a 2018 state­wide grand jury re­port, which said 20 of its priests had been ac­cused since the di­o­cese’s cre­ation in 1951. The di­o­cese has paid $5.9 mil­lion from a com­pen­sa­tion fund to 72 sur­vi­vors.

He ac­knowl­edged the im­pact of the cor­o­navi­rus.

“Mass at­ten­dance is 30 to 40% of pre-pan­demic lev­els,” he said, and im­pact­ing fi­nan­cial giv­ing. “But I want you to know that even dur­ing the pan­demic, God’s work con­tin­ues.”

He ap­plauded Cath­o­lics’ re­sponses to the pan­demic in mo­bi­liz­ing to aid the needy and pro­vid­ing for min­is­try re­motely and in per­son us­ing safety pre­cau­tions.

He also pledged to con­tinue the di­o­cese’s re­sponse to the opi­oid ep­i­demic in the re­gion, which was a pri­or­ity of Bishop Male­sic’s work.

Reli­gious lead­ers from the re­gion ap­plauded his ap­point­ment.

“He has been a very good friend to our con­gre­ga­tion,” said Sis­ter Cath­er­ine Meinert, pro­vin­cial su­pe­rior of the U.S. Prov­ince of the Greens­burg-based Sis­ters of Char­ity of Seton Hill. “Our prayers will be with him as he as­sumes lead­er­ship of our di­o­cese.”

Mon­signor Ray­mond Rif­fle, rec­tor of Blessed Sac­ra­ment Ca­the­dral and di­rec­tor of Cath­o­lic Char­i­ties for the di­o­cese, has known Mon­signor Ku­lick since the early 1990s, when they served at the same par­ish.

“When ... he is talk­ing with you, that’s where his at­ten­tion is, and you def­i­nitely know that he is in­ter­ested in what you have to say and that it is im­por­tant that he hear it,” said Mon­signor Rif­fle. “He has al­ways ev­i­denced that de­sire to be con­nected to the peo­ple.”

“Bishop-elect Ku­lick is an amaz­ing pas­tor and an out­stand­ing ad­min­is­tra­tor,” said Bishop Zubik in a state­ment. “I have known him since he was a sem­i­nary stu­dent. He was im­pres­sive then and even more so now.”

The Rev. Liddy Bar­low, ex­ec­u­tive min­is­ter for Chris­tian As­so­ci­ates of South­west Penn­syl­va­nia, an ec­u­men­i­cal or­ga­ni­za­tion of Cath­o­lic, Ortho­dox and Prot­es­tant de­nom­i­na­tions, said Mon­signor Ku­lick has “demon­strated a strong in­ter­est in ec­u­menism and a warm, pas­to­ral heart.”

Arch­ab­bot Mar­tin de Porres Bar­tel of Saint Vin­cent Arch­ab­bey in Latrobe noted that Mon­signor Ku­lick stud­ied at its af­fil­i­ated col­lege and sem­i­nary. “We are so pleased that ‘one of our own’ will take the helm as our chief shep­herd,” he said in a state­ment. “We look for­ward to our con­tin­ued part­ner­ship with him.”

Peter Smith: peter­smith@post-ga­zette.com or 412-263-1416; Twit­ter @PG_PeterSmith.

First Published: December 18, 2020, 11:39 a.m.