When the Rev. Alexander Pleban looks back on his nearly 60-year career as a priest, one feeling in particular stands out among the flood of emotions.
“I feel very, very blessed that my priesthood was during the golden age of the diocese,” said Pleban, 95.
He’s talking about the 1970s and ’80s, when every corner of the four-county Catholic Diocese of Greensburg was filled with fully staffed parishes and faithful churchgoers.
“We had more parishes, we had more priests, we had more schools. We had more of everything than we have today,” said Pleban, the last living priest ordained under the diocese’s first bishop, Hugh Lamb. “And there’s no fault with that. It’s just a lot of things have changed.”
But as the Diocese of Greensburg prepares to celebrate its 75th anniversary next year, church leaders say the tide is beginning to turn.
‘A great revival going on’
The Rev. Anthony Onoko reports an increase in church participation — noting an increase in Mass attendance, baptisms and upcoming weddings across the three churches he serves in Perryopolis, North Belle Vernon and Monessen.
He’s calling it a revival.
“Not just in this area,” said Onoko, who moved to the diocese from his native Nigeria in 2020. “In the whole of America, there is a great revival going on.
“I see there is a hunger for God. That gives me joy, that a lot of people are coming back again to the knowledge of God.”
Diocese of Greensburg Bishop Larry Kulick also is heartened by the increases he has seen to Mass attendance and church involvement, particularly among young people.
“I really think in many ways, our culture has bottomed out,” Kulick said. “The materialism, the secularism, fractured family life has all lent itself to a time historically now that I believe we’re on the cusp of a major spiritual renewal.
“What I find is the people who are in church now are in church and are committed and they want to make a difference in their parishes.”
Onoko and Kulick’s perception is echoed by a rising number of U.S. adults who believe religion is gaining influence in American life, according to Pew Research Center.
In February 2024, just 18% of U.S. adults held this belief — the lowest level in more than two decades. A year later, Pew reported its highest figure in 15 years — 31%.
But that belief isn’t necessarily resulting in more people practicing a religion, Pew found.
While 64% of U.S. adults identified as Christian in 2020, 62% reported that religious affiliation this year, according to Pew. No major changes were noticed among U.S. adults identifying with any other religion — which rose from 7% in 2020 to 8% this year — or those associating with no religion, which held at 28% across the five-year-span, Pew reported.
That isn’t stopping Kulick from stoking the rising interest he said he has observed. His goal in 2026 is to offer more opportunities for people to connect with their church communities.
“My hope for this jubilee year is to bring together not only a reflection of where we have come from, what we have inherited, what our legacy is,” Kulick said, “but … (to also) allow people to have meaningful experiences of deepening their faith and strengthening their relationship with each other, with God and through the church.”
Despite changes, diocese mission holds
Pleban retired from the priesthood around 2010, moving into the diocese’s home for former clergy — Neumann House in Unity. For the next decade, he assisted with Mass at nearby churches from time to time.
Pleban looks fondly on his years connecting with churchgoers, auditing classes at Duquesne University and serving as executive director for the diocese’s Catholic Accent publication. And even though he cannot deny the diocese looks different, Pleban believes it is headed in the right direction.
“She’s still serving all the people that she needs to serve,” he said. “She’s reluctant to close parishes, because she knows what that means to people in that community.”
From Onoko’s perspective, the church’s job remains the same — in all places and throughout all time.
“The church is still one, the same — still the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic church,” he said. “It has not changed since I was ordained, and even after I’m gone, the church will still remain one — universal in faith and everything that we do.”
