Father Dave Poecking

Fr. David Poecking was born and raised in Buffalo, NY. He grew up dabbling in computers before they were fashionable and spending the rest of his time reading J.R.R. Tolkien, playing Dungeons & Dragons, and becoming an Eagle Scout. He left for Pittsburgh at age 17 to attend Carnegie Mellon University, where he promptly involved himself in math teaching and research and entered the Catholic Church.

At 21, Fr. Dave began a two-year tour in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer, winning an Independence Day prize for the most remotely assigned American expatriate in Kenya. There he taught math, physics, Church history, and sex education.

Upon returning to Pittsburgh, Fr. Dave taught math at Carnegie Mellon to put himself through the first years of seminary studies, obtaining degrees in philosophy and theology. He applied to the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh and was accepted as a candidate for the priesthood. Subsequent studies led him to higher degrees in theology and a doctorate in ministry.

Since his ordination in 1996, Fr. Dave has served as assistant or pastor in several Catholic parishes around Pittsburgh, for seven years as director of the Office of Continuing Education of Clergy for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, and currently pastors Archangel Gabriel Parish in the western suburbs. He has built a church, closed two, and merged parishes and schools. He also serves the Diocese of Pittsburgh on the College of Consultors and Presbyteral Council, as president of the board of directors for the South Regional Catholic Elementary Schools, as delegate to the Council of Bishops & Judicatory Executives of Southwest Pennsylvania, and as host of Pittsburgh’s Priest-Rabbi Dialogue, among other special offices.

Fr. Dave moonlights occasionally as a math professor, a writer for various Christian publications, and as a consultant for the Leadership Roundtable, advising (arch)dioceses mainly on leadership development. Like Fr. Dave, his younger brother, Fr. Kevin Poecking, migrated from Buffalo to Pittsburgh, studied math at CMU, entered the Catholic Church, and became a priest. Their mother lives in Scott Township and their father near Buffalo, NY.