Msgr. Joseph Buh was a trail-blazing missionary priest in Duluth, Minnesota, and the local diocese is now considering his cause for canonization.
According to the website for his beatification and canonization, "On July 25, the sacred exhumation of the casket containing the body of Msgr. Joseph Buh was carried out at Calvary Cemetery."
Bishop Daniel Felton of the Diocese of Duluth explained, "This is a necessary step for his cause for sainthood."
The Minnesota Star Tribune adds that, Msgr. Joseph Buh "was considered the 'patriarch of the Diocese of Duluth,'" and the local diocese is determining whether he "has enough of a following for local religious leaders to start investigating whether he is a fitting candidate for sainthood. This is an early step before a layered process that could take decades — or prove fruitless."
Who was Msgr. Joseph Buh?
Born in Slovenia, Msgr. Buh came to the United States 1864 as a missionary priest. Initially he served both Native Americans and Slovenian immigrants.
He also served the Diocese of Duluth as vicar general and helped organize its parishes as the diocese was formed.
Buh was highly regarded for his holiness, and the website for his cause relates what his bishop thought of him when he died.
When Msgr. Buh died on Feb. 1, 1922, and was buried in Calvary Cemetery, Bishop McNicholas instructed the funeral director to make the casket metal-lined. “His reason: he considered his vicar general ‘a saint,’ and he set the stage, therefore, for an exhumation at some later date,” the biography, published in 1972, states.
Fr. Richard Kunst of the Diocese of Duluth provides a summary of Buh's personal holiness:
It is only when one realizes the great harvest that he has reaped that one is forced to take into account the many and deep furrows that he plowed in the harvest fields of Christ. His zeal for souls was ever a burning fire. No journey on foot, no distance by horseback was too long or too trying provided a soul was to be helped at the journey’s end. He would set out with a trust in God realizing that God’s love of souls was infinite and that he was but the dispenser of the riches of God’s sacramental graces. He was ever willing to make every sacrifice in the performance of duty for the salvation of souls.
At this stage the Diocese of Duluth needs to review Msgr. Buh's life to determine whether he lived a life of "heroic virtue" and if people have been devoted to him since his death.
Once that is confirmed, his cause can be sent to the Vatican for an official review of his life.
