Editorial: Eternal rest grant unto him

As Archbishop Bernard Hebda of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis observed in his funeral homily for Bishop Peter Muhich as The Northern Cross was going to press, we in the Diocese of Duluth were indeed “so proud” of the Rapid City bishop, who was a son of the church in northeastern Minnesota. 

Bishop Muhich not only was born in Eveleth in 1961, he served as a priest of the Diocese of Duluth from his ordination in 1989 to his appointment by Pope Francis to the Rapid City Diocese in 2020. That ministry brought him to parishes in Brainerd, Grand Rapids, Bigfork, Effie, Aurora, Hoyt Lakes, Proctor, Saginaw, and Hibbing, as well as Duluth, where he was serving as pastor of St. Mary Star of the Sea and rector of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary at the time of his appointment.  

He served on the diocesan presbyteral council and personnel board. He was a dean and consultor. He worked with the permanent diaconate program and on the Stella Maris Catholic School Board. He served as spiritual director of the local chapter of the Catholic Medical Association, and was diocesan finance officer. In 2012, he led a major strategic planning process for the Diocese of Duluth. He worked in catechesis. 

When you ponder the scope of that work, it becomes clear just how much his ministry affected our entire diocese, not only individual parishioners and families but in the way he mentored and taught and used his administrative talents. As when any of our loved ones dies, it is often in that moment that we come to a fuller appreciation of all what they have meant to us and how their lives have touched so many others. 

As the faithful of northeastern Minnesota, we know from our own experience in recent years what it is to have a spiritual father, one to our human eyes who is far too young, taken suddenly to the Lord. And we know that even in the midst of those painful circumstances, the God of hope brings resurrection and life in the midst of that grief, and he brings abundant joy and goodness when the time is right. 

We pray that God will bring consolation and hope to our brothers and sisters in western South Dakota in their grief, generously and speedily.