Tom Zinkula to be installed Thursday as bishop of Davenport Diocese

When 21-year-old Tom Zinkula was a Cornell College senior trying to figure out what he was going to do with his life, he never imagined his 60-year-old self would one day lead the Davenport Diocese.

But Thursday, the Mount Vernon native takes the next step in his unlikely journey to the priesthood as he is installed as the ninth bishop of the diocese.

A ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday at St. John Vianney Church in Bettendorf.

'I was in the second semester of my senior year and I decided I needed to do something, I needed to figure out where I was going,” Zinkula recalled.

He had studied math and economics, but didn't see himself as a teacher. Instead, he became interested in actuarial sciences that combine math and business and took a job as an actuary after graduation.

'Already by the fall or toward the end of that year I knew this wasn't something I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” he said.

He became interested in law and went back to school for three years in search of his law degree, this time to the University of Iowa. He interned at the Cedar Rapids law firm Simmons-Perrine during his second year of law school, and then was hired as an attorney after he received his degree.

'It was good, I really enjoyed what I was doing,” he said. 'I wasn't really looking for something different, but there was something missing in my life, and I was praying about it. I prayed for a couple years, thinking it was something on the side - volunteering, doing some kind of service. I just didn't know where God was directing me.”

Then one day, he said, the path became clear.

'Suddenly the priesthood was presented to me by the Holy Spirit,” he said. 'So that's what I did - after practicing law for three years, I went off to seminary.”

Now, 27 years later, Msgr. Tom Zinkula of the Archdiocese of Dubuque is poised to become Bishop Tom Zinkula of the Davenport Diocese.

His path from priest to bishop in some ways has surprised him.

'I saw myself as a parish priest, that's what I knew about the priesthood growing up in the Catholic church,” he said. 'I never saw myself as a lawyer of canaan law, or as a vicar, or president of the seminary, or, now, bishop.”

But, he said, he accepts the position with an excited anticipation.

'It's a big role, there are a lot of challenges,” he said. 'I need to learn how to be a bishop, I need to know the people in the diocese, but it's a new adventure, a new challenge and I look forward to it.”

'Really, at the heart of it all, there's a sense of peace,” he said. 'I do feel called to this ministry by the Holy Spirit. I feel like there's a sense of peace about it, and it's the right thing for me to do at this point in my life.”

Zinkula is succeeding Bishop Martin Amos, who was named to the post in 2006. Amos turned 75 in December and under Vatican rule was eligible for retirement.