Who will be the next Terrible Towel waving Bishop?

This morning before Mass I read the Sunday Post-Gazette online and saw that Ann Rodgers had a speculative shortlist of the candidates to replace Bishop Wuerl who is now, of course, in DC. While none on her list are anywhere as good-looking as Wuerl, there are some that are interesting. The one that is most interesting to me is Bishop Zubik, and not only because he knows what halushki is, and he probably called his grandparents Bubba and Zeddi, and he is known to be a Steelers fan, which will help the Holy Steelers Empire (you would be surprised how often in a Mass or church service in this part of the world Steelers are mentioned, prayed for, or even discussed). What I like about Zubik is that he is an educator. The Catholic Schools in the City of Pittsburgh have a golden opportunity right now. There is a lot of displeasure with the public schools in the city, from the massive closings (20+) and restructuring, to the alarmingly low graduation rates revealed in a recent Rand study. Wuerl had to oversee some unfortunate closings due to the population drain out of this area, but perhaps the time is ripe for more people here to be re-introduced to Catholic education.
At the Rocco blog, he dismissed this list entirely, saying that according to his sources the appointee will be "the head of another local church." Does this mean one of the neighboring dioceses? Like Greensburg or Altoona-J-town? Or any leader because I seem to remember reading somewhere early on speculation that Archabbot Nowicki was a possibility?

Comments

LC said…
Interesting -- I didn't read Rocco's post as being a dismissal of her list. I think I took the phrase "head of another local church" a little differently. I don't know that he meant "local" in that sense. I thought he was using "local church" = "diocese." So I read him as saying that his sources say the appointee will be a Bishop who's already heading a diocese himself -- i.e., not an auxiliary and not a priest plucked out of the ranks. But that was just my take -- who knows if that's what he meant.

You guys want our Bish? We won't miss him! Kidding, only kidding. :-)
LC said…
BTW, I dig Zubik, too. He was the Bishop who administered the Sacrament of Confirmation for my cousin Tyler's class, and he struck me as a wonderful preacher. At the time, Bishop Bosco had already turned 75 and had submitted his resignation to the Vatican. I was hoping we might luck out and get Zubik to replace him, so I was very sad to hear he was appointed to Green Bay just a short while before Bishop Bosco's replacement was named.