It’s always encouraging to hear about a bishop who has a way with people. The newly named Bishop of Pittsburgh, David Zubik seems to be that kind of guy.

This interesting piece from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (by one of the counry’s premier religion writers, Ann Rodgers) has some great insight and color from people who know him — including a deacon who has been his Master of Ceremonies:

Deacon Mike Vincent, director of faith formation at SS. Peter and Paul parish and St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Green Bay, tripled as Bishop Zubik’s master of ceremonies. He drove him to parishes and coached the altar servers. Riding in his Toyota Avalon with license DAZ 75 — his initials and year of ordination — the bishop reread the daily scriptures. And he always prayed, asking Deacon Vincent to join him.

“He never misses prayer,” he said. “I think that is what maintains his ability to face all these difficult things. He is very even-keeled, always level-headed. He truly lives what he believes, and believes what he reads in scripture.”

Bishop Zubik said he knew “absolutely nothing” of Green Bay when he arrived in 2003.

“I couldn’t even pronounce the names of half of the 16 counties in the diocese,” he said, citing puzzlers such as Outagamie.

Although he knows the Western Pennsylvania pronunciation of North Versailles, he is not convinced he will return knowing the needs of the diocese where he was a top administrator for 15 years.

“I’ve got to make sure that I don’t pigeon-hole anybody on staff or even the diocese as it was four years ago when I left. Four years changes a lot,” he said. “I need to really keep my eyes and ears open to learn what’s happened.”

Green Bay taught him how to listen because it challenged his assumptions about Catholic culture. Although both Pittsburgh and Green Bay are heavily Catholic cities, have rivers and bridges and are fanatically about their NFL teams, the two dioceses are very different, he said.

Green Bay’s priests had experimented with church law and liturgy in ways that Pittsburgh’s rarely did. And Wisconsin law gives the laity there far more say over church property.

When it came to teachings of the two most recent popes and his efforts to inculcate them, “there would be a certain segment of people here who would think that the church is going backwards,” Bishop Zubik said. He searched for common ground.

“I realized pretty early on that there was a different approach to things here than in Pittsburgh and I needed not to presume that I knew all the answers, that I knew where people were. I needed to listen and learn,” he said.

Go to the link and read the whole thing. You won’t be sorry. Meantime, look at the picture above and check out the snazzy yellow plaid cuffs. He’s no ordinary black-and-white kind of bishop, is he?

Photo: Bishop David Zubik by Marc Larson, Green Bay Press Gazette