LATROBE, PA — The Most Reverend David A. Zubik, bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, took questions from Saint Vincent College students for 90 minutes on April 25 during a mock press conference at the Dr. Frank J. Luparello Lecture Hall in the Sis and Herman Dupré Science Pavilion on campus.
The event was part of a broadcast journalism class run by Ms. Jennifer Antkowiak, an adjunct professor of business communications in the Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics and Government. A former news anchor at KDKA-TV, Ms. Antkowiak is chief communications officer for the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
“I try to bring as many real-life situations to the class as possible,” Ms. Antkowiak said. The course work includes deadline reporting, feature writing and story research. In mid-April, the class virtually monitored a live press conference with the diocese’s director of safety and security at the pastoral center in Pittsburgh.
“We’ve gotten a lot of hands-on experience this semester, and this [mock press conference] was a wonderful capstone to our class,” said Natalie Homison, C 25, a communication major from Zelienople.
Twenty students participated in the event with Bishop Zubik. He took questions on a wide range of topics, including evangelization, communication with parishioners as well as non-Catholics, and the reorganization of the Catholic school system in the Diocese.
After serving four years as Bishop of Green Bay, WI, Bishop Zubik was installed as 12th bishop of Pittsburgh on Sept. 28, 2007. A native of Ambridge, he served as associate spiritual director at Saint Vincent Seminary from 1989 to 1996. In 2016, Bishop Zubik was elected chairman of the Saint Vincent Seminary Board of Regents.
“I was a little nervous coming into this, considering it was the bishop and I’ve heard about him all my life,” said Jacob Bacasa, C 26, a communication major from Glenshaw. “It was probably a little nerve-wracking for all of us coming up with questions.”
Homison asked about Zubik’s move to suspend in-person Mass attendance in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. “Of all the decisions I’ve had to make in my 28 years [as an auxiliary bishop and bishop], that one was the most difficult,” Bishop Zubik said. “But we had to do it in order to protect people.”
Homison said pondering a quote from Saint Padre Pio—who said, “The Earth could exist more easily without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass”—spurred her to ask the bishop about the shutdown.
“During [the pandemic], we were without the Eucharist and many other important things for so long,” Homison said. “I can't imagine, as he said, how hard of a decision that was to make, and I was really curious to hear his insight into that.”
Bacasa followed up by asking what Zubik and the Church learned from the pandemic shutdown, and the bishop mentioned the approval by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops of a three-year National Eucharistic Revival in November 2021.
“When we reopened the churches, I expected a large number of people to come back to Mass right away,” the bishop said. “My greatest disappointment was to see that it didn’t happen. That’s one reason the bishops in the United States called for a Eucharistic revival. Lately, there has been an increase in the numbers of [churchgoers], so maybe it’s working.”
PHOTO 1: Bishop David Zubik of the Diocese of Pittsburgh answers a question April 25 during a mock press conference with Saint Vincent College students.
PHOTO 2: Bishop Zubik meets Saint Vincent College students April 25 before holding a mock press conference.