After too-long a time, the Diocese of Pittsburgh is getting ready to welcome a new bishop. Hometown boy David Zubik is to be installed at the end of September, and he’s already making the rounds of the local media. Here’s a nugget from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

David A. Zubik once hoped to be winning lawsuits, not souls.

“I wanted to be a lawyer, a father, a husband,” said Zubik, who will be installed Sept. 28 as the 12th bishop of the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese.

He hoped a trip to law school would break the string of steel mill jobs held by the men in his family in Ambridge. Instead of taking the bar exam, he followed the advice of his teachers and parish priest, and answered a different calling.

Zubik became a priest in 1975, bringing his blue-collar experiences of summer jobs as a laborer, a mailman and a dispatcher for a railroad. His homegrown work ethic and firsthand knowledge of the conditions facing working men and women are raising the expectations that he will be a bishop with an approachable style.

“There is nothing phony about him,” said Anthony Rainaldi, 83, a former United Steelworkers Union official who knows Zubik through his work in the church.

Those people skills will be useful as Zubik faces the challenges here of a declining Catholic population, a shortage of priests and lingering damage from the national church sexual abuse scandal, religious scholars said. Zubik said his goal is to “grow” the church by increasing the number of priests and the number of Catholics opting for marriage.

“I want people to be excited about God,” said Zubik, who will celebrate his 58th birthday Sept. 4. “There’s been a weakening of the value of family life.”

Zubik said he hopes to be “a walking billboard” for the priesthood, doing his best to witness and encourage men to consider the vocation, especially older men who are not fulfilled in their careers. His effort to grow the church will include “doing a better job of reaching out to the poor, working together as parishes and good stewardship.”

There’s a lot more in the Trib-Review piece about Bishop Zubik’s background, and his thoughts on the damage done by the sex scandals.

Little-known fact: he loves cars and does a lot of praying in his Toyota.

Photo: David Zubik by Joe Appel, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review