Monsignor Bernard Hebda, a Pittsburgh priest and former attorney for the Reed-Smith law firm who has held a Vatican post for 13 years, has been named bishop of the Diocese of Gaylord, Mich.

Now 50, his appointment as a bishop was expected.

"We consider this long overdue. He's brilliant, generous, gentle and pious," said the Rev. Louis Vallone, pastor of St. John of God, McKees Rocks, and St. Catherine of Siena, Crescent.

No date has been set for his installation in Gaylord, at the northern tip of Michigan's lower peninsula. The rural diocese has 76,000 Catholics and 81 parishes in 21 counties. Its first bishop was Cardinal Edmund Szoka, who now oversees the financial operations of the Vatican City State. Its current prelate, Bishop Patrick Cooney, 75, is retiring.

Yesterday Bishop-elect Hebda spoke of his reverence for Bishop Frederic Baraga, a 19th-century missionary to the Indians of that region, recalling a display of his deerskin communion vestments.

"Never did I have an inkling that the Lord would one day call me to serve his flock," he said. "I am both humbled and honored by our Holy Father's decision."

The appointment will make him the seventh Pittsburgher actively serving as a diocesan bishop.

Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, who had served with him when both were aides to then-Bishop Donald Wuerl, called him a "much-beloved priest."

"I have experienced first-hand the qualities that make him a great priest and will make him an extraordinary bishop -- his self-effacing nature, his capacity to find the good in everyone he meets, his cheerful helpfulness," he said.

The bishop-elect attended Resurrection Elementary in Brookline and South Hills Catholic High School, a predecessor of Seton-LaSalle in Mt. Lebanon. He earned a political science degree from Harvard University and a law degree from Columbia University before joining the prestigious Reed-Smith law firm in 1983.

But he soon entered seminary, earned a canon law degree in Rome and was ordained in 1989.

He was an aide to Bishop Wuerl from 1990 to 1992, then joined the pastoral team at Prince of Peace, South Side, which had just been created from a painful merger of seven parishes. Father Hebda helped to calm the storm, said the Rev. Bernard Harcarik, the pastor.

"He's just an extraordinary priest. There's nothing he couldn't do," he said.

"He loved the church as an institution and he loved the people of the church. Sometimes those two can be at odds with each other, but for him, they blended together."

He spent one year as a chaplain at Slippery Rock University. In 1996 he was drafted by the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, the rough equivalent of a Vatican attorney general's office. It reviews decrees by Vatican offices and and bishops worldwide, to make sure they conform to canon law. In 2003 he was promoted to under-secretary of the council, an important post.

"Bernie is a wonderful guy and an excellent canon lawyer. He has never sought the spotlight, but his talents are immense," said Nicholas Cafardi, a canon and civil lawyer on the faculty of Duquesne University Law School.

"This is a great gain for the American church," he said.

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