GREENSBURG — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg got its first homegrown bishop Thursday with the ordination of Armstrong County native Larry Kulick Jr. as its new spiritual leader.

"Little did you know when he was running around as a kid ... that that little kid would end up being the bishop of Greensburg," Archbishop Nelson Perez of Philadelphia, who presided at the ceremony, told Bishop Kulick's parents.

They were seated in the front pew at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, near other family members.

With a mix of solemnity and levity, Archbishop Perez added: "This wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for you and what you taught him. ... Now you've got to respect this guy. You've got to call him, ‘Your excellency.’ ”

Under pandemic conditions, attendance was limited, with priests, religious sisters, Bishop Kulick's family members and a small number of others spaced apart in the pews. Others were watching on livestreamed video.

He's the first native and priest of the Diocese of Greensburg to become its bishop since its founding in 1951. The diocese includes Armstrong, Fayette, Indiana and Westmoreland counties.

Bishop Kulick, 54, is a native of Leechburg and was raised, educated and ordained a priest in the Diocese of Greensburg, where he served as a parish priest and administrator. He had been serving as diocesan administrator in the wake of Bishop Edward Malesic's departure last fall to become bishop of Cleveland.

Bishop Malesic returned to Greensburg on Thursday to join his own predecessor, retired Bishop Lawrence Brandt, as co-ordaining bishops alongside Archbishop Perez.

In remarks after the service, Bishop Kulick recalled his upbringing in Leechburg, a steel town on the Kiskiminetas River, where he eagerly sought to volunteer as an altar server.

The priest at St. Martha Parish, the ethnic Slovak congregation where he was raised, told him to wait until his first communion. Soon after that rite, as a second grader, he knocked on the rectory door to volunteer.

"I come before you today, knocking at the door," Bishop Kulick told his hearers on Thursday. "This time, not at a side door of a rectory ... but to your door. "

He added: "Just give me a chance. I promise I will do my best but ...I need God's grace, and I need your help."

The ceremony included hymns and choral anthems in English, Latin and Slovak, the language that Bishop Kulick heard from relatives growing up and in which he prayed at his ethnic parish.

During the ceremony, his parents presented him with his bishop's ring, while others gave him his miter, or peaked hat, and crozier, representing a shepherd's staff.

The congregation stood and applauded when he was seated in the bishop's seat at the front of the cathedral after his installation.

His father, Larry Kulick Sr., said afterward that his son inherited the work ethic of his steelworker and coal miner forebears and was the "son every father should have."

He added: "I would have never dreamt that God would pick my son to do the work."

His mother, Myrna Kulick, recalled that when her son began as an altar server, she wondered whether he was too young, but he never wavered.

Thursday's ceremony was "a joy that's hard to explain," she said, comparing it to the happiness she felt when he was born,

His sister, Lisa Blake, of Plum, said, "This has been my brother's calling his whole life. I've never seen someone work with such devotion and love, not just for the church but for all the community."

First Published: February 11, 2021, 11:35 p.m.