Scholarship fund to honor retiring Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik

As Bishop David A. Zubik celebrates the end of his ecclesiastical career as leader of the Pittsburgh Catholic diocese, his colleagues are honoring him with a scholarship named in his honor.

Zubik celebrated his 75th birthday on Sept. 4, 2024. It’s the mandatory retirement age for bishops. On Monday, the Most Rev. Mark Eckman, an auxiliary bishop for the diocese, will be installed to replace Zubik.

“I’m not going to be a couch potato,” Zubik joked when he spoke to the media June 4 after Pope Leo XVI elevated Eckman.

His plans include to celebrate Masses where needed and to volunteer at Catholic Charities, he said.

The Bishop David A. Zubik Church Alive! Scholarship will be funded with contributions from clergy and faithful members who contribute to it and it will be awarded to help defray the costs of tuition to a Catholic high school in the diocese.

Those tuition rates aren’t cheap, ranging from about $10,900 per year at Bishop Serra High School in McKeesport to about $17,700 at Central and Oakland Catholic high schools in Pittsburgh.

When Zubik, an Ambridge native, was a young priest, he taught at the former Quigley Catholic High School in Baden. It closed in 2020 because of declining enrollment.

The name of the scholarship also references Zubik’s Church Alive! drives: First a capital campaign that generated $230 million in pledges in 2015 and then a move to consolidate parishes in an effort to create more vibrant parishes amid a declining number of priests and parishioners.