On March 10, 1951, Pope Pius XII created the Diocese of Greensburg.
If a parish is the spiritual house of a Catholic, a diocese is a kind of religious municipality. It is the governmental unit of the Catholic Church — larger than a city, smaller than a state.
Greensburg is one of eight in Pennsylvania. It isn’t the oldest or the largest. Those honors belong to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. It’s not the youngest — Allentown was formed in 1961. It isn’t the smallest. Greensburg’s 128,000 Catholics are 50,000 or so more than Altoona-Johnstown’s population.
It occupies the role of middle child. But somehow that seems appropriate.
Like many middle children, the diocese can be a reliable presence. It is a peacekeeper. It stands on its own.
And for the four counties that it serves, that seems to be a kind of mirror.
Westmoreland County is not as big as neighboring Allegheny — home of the Diocese of Pittsburgh — but it is a strong, sturdy seat with the Greensburg cathedral standing tall just up the street from the courthouse.
Armstrong County is caught between its smaller size and rolling riverscape and its place in the industrial history of the region. Bishop Larry Kulik, who was consecrated last month as the diocese’s sixth bishop, is a Leechburg native. He is the diocese’s first leader to have been grown in its backyard.
Fayette County is steeped in history like George Washington’s Fort Necessity and yet is trying to find its way in the future with the energy industry, the same way the diocese is trying to build from a history of damage within the church toward a better future in the wake of the child sex abuse grand jury reports.
Indiana County may be best known for its namesake university. One of the Greensburg diocese’s most important duties is its focus on parochial education.
The diocese is not perfect, but nobody is. A central message of the church is to keep trying to be better tomorrow than you are today. That makes it a perfect model for the lives it shepherds every day.
Happy birthday, Greensburg diocese.
