SERVING THE DIOCESE
A pair of Butler County residents are occupying important posts in the recent reorganization of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
As announced by Bishop David Zubik, retired Superior Court Judge Maureen Lally-Green of Cranberry Township was named associate general secretary in the diocese's General Secretariat.
Robert Paserba, a Center Township resident and former superintendent of the Butler School District, was named new diocesan secretary for Catholic education and evangelization. Paserba had been superintendent of the Catholic schools in the diocese.
The appointments take effect July 9.
“Over the course of the last several years, the administrative board (which is my cabinet) has been working on establishing strategic goals that will span at least the next five years,” wrote Zubik announcing the changes in a letter sent to all priests of the diocese.
“These changes reflect our mission, goals and strategies and reflect our need to assure the continued growth of the Church of Pittsburgh as the Church Alive,” his letter continued.
“My duties will be basically to support the general secretary in a lot of the work he does on the adminstrative side, and I would continue on in the work for church relations,” said Lally-Green, who will retain her position as director of the Office for Church Relations.
Lally-Green took over that position a little less than three years ago following her stepping down from the bench.
“I retired from the bench in July 2009. I was up for retention, and I decided to move on and do something else,” she said. “It was an opportunity to get back a little bit with my church.”
“Plus I loved the vision of Bishop Zubik with his Church Alive, the way he laid out what his vision was for the diocese,” said Lally-Green. “He had written a pastoral letter that I thought was visionary. It's become our strategic plan for the diocese and the next few years of what we will be doing, the teaching of Christ's message.”
Lally-Green spent 15 years as a professor at the Duquesne University Law School before joining the bench in 1998 and remains an adjunct professor at Duquesne Law School teaching in the area of appellate practice and procedure and employment discrimination.Previously, she worked as counsel for the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Westinghouse Electric.Paserba, who had served as superintendent of diocese schools with their nearly 22,000 students and 1,700 teachers since 1994, said the diocese will begin searching for a new superintendent once his new appointment takes effect.“The responsibilities will be quite similar to what I had in serving school-age children,” said Paserba of his new position. “The focus will continue to be on the students in the 100 Catholic schools in the six-county area and oversight of religious programs in our parishes.”He said now he will not only oversee the diocese's schools but also the religious education in Sunday schools and CCD classes, programs that reach 75,000 students, and evangelization efforts.Paserba was superintendent of the Butler School District from 1985 to 1994. Before that, he had been a teacher in the McQuistion and Institute Hill elementary schools of the district.
