Why a Minnesota Missionary Priest Feels Strangely Timely

Some sainthood causes arrive with trumpets. This one feels more like boots on wet ground, a canoe pulled up on shore, a priest squinting into northern wind and deciding, again, to keep going.

The Diocese of Duluth has officially opened the canonization cause for Msgr. Joseph Francis Buh, a Slovenian-born priest who ministered in Minnesota from the 1860s until his death in 1922. He now carries the title Servant of God. Bishop Daniel Felton opened the cause with a Mass at Duluth's cathedral, where Buh's remains were reinterred last year.

I like this already, partly because I'm suspicious of our modern addiction to shiny Catholic heroes. We love charisma. We love branding. We love a saint we can fit on a conference poster with moody lighting and a quote in tasteful serif font. Then along comes a man who got around by rail, horse, snowshoes, and canoe. No podcast. No microphone. Just miles.

That kind of holiness has a way of embarrassing the rest of us.

Holiness with mud on it

According to the report, Msgr. Buh was born in Slovenia in 1833, served there first as a priest, then came to Minnesota in 1864 after being inspired by Venerable Frederic Baraga. He spent decades among Ojibwa people and immigrant communities in northern Minnesota, and the Diocese of Duluth says he established as many as 57 parishes. At one point he was entrusted with northern Minnesota missions, and later served as vicar general and chancellor in the new Diocese of Duluth.

Fifty-seven parishes. I had to stop at that line for a second.

Not because numbers make someone holy, they don't. A man can build things and still be vain as a peacock in church shoes. Still, there is something bracing about a priest whose ministry can be described first by where he went and who he stayed with. The story says he lived with his people, listened to them with his heart, learned their language in his heart. Bishop Felton used that phrase in the homily, and thank God he did.

Because if we're honest, plenty of church people prefer speaking at others. Learning them is slower work.

I remember years ago after Mass standing in the parking lot talking with a parishioner whose family had been carrying grief like an overstuffed grocery bag splitting at the seams. I started with my usual priestly instinct to offer insight, which is often just sanctified throat-clearing if I'm being candid. What helped was not my cleverness. It was staying there long enough to listen until the real ache came out.

That doesn't make me heroic. It makes me late for lunch.

Still, that's often where ministry begins.

Not glamorous, which is half the point

Bishop Felton told the bishops back in June about Buh's cause, and they unanimously supported moving it forward. Fine and good. Necessary process. The Church should be careful here.

What strikes me more is what sort of life is being lifted up for examination.

Not celebrity Catholicism. Not public combativeness dressed up as courage. Not ecclesial ladder-climbing with holy wallpaper pasted over it. A missionary life that sounds exhausting, hidden, durable.

He traveled however he could travel. Rail when possible. Horse when needed. Snowshoes when winter said otherwise. Canoe when geography laughed at convenience. I confess I complain when the parish printer jams five minutes before bulletin deadline, so maybe I'm not the ideal judge of rugged apostolic endurance.

There is also something moving about Slovenia taking interest too, through Archbishop Stanislav Zore's letter read at the Mass. A son of one local church gives himself away somewhere far from home, then generations later both places are still claiming him with affection. That's Catholicism when it's healthy. Not franchise expansion. Family resemblance across distance.

I know, I know, "family" language can get sentimental fast. Sometimes church life feels less like family dinner and more like trying to seat feuding uncles at a wedding reception without anyone throwing potatoes. Even so...

This story carries warmth.

Put Christ back in the middle, yes please

Bishop Felton connected Buh's witness to revival and said revival belongs to the Holy Spirit before it belongs to any human strategy. Good. That needs saying more often than it is.

I've sat through enough meetings to know how quickly we start talking as if renewal will arrive because our plan has color-coded tabs and an inspiring slogan printed on cardstock thick enough to survive judgment day.

The bishop also said people are called to put Jesus Christ on center stage once again. That line can sound obvious until you notice how often we place other things there instead: our anxieties, our factional fights, our nostalgia for some lost decade when supposedly everyone behaved and choir robes fit properly.

Msgr. Buh seems to have had less interest in staging things than in serving people long enough that Christ could be heard as good news instead of religious noise.

That's what catches me here.

A priest who listened before speaking. Who learned people before trying to manage them. Who endured weather, distance, inconvenience and obscurity without needing applause every ten minutes like a toddler with finger paint art on the fridge.

Maybe that's why this cause feels timely to me. The Church does not need fewer big personalities exactly, but she certainly needs more holy endurance. More pastors willing to stay close enough to smell like sheep, woodsmoke, train soot or whatever northern Minnesota smelled like after weeks on mission routes.

If Msgr. Joseph Francis Buh becomes known far beyond Duluth, I hope it won't be because Catholics enjoy collecting another interesting name for saint trivia night.

I hope it's because some young priest reads about him and thinks: maybe my job is simpler than I've made it. Stay near people. Learn their griefs and their words. Keep Christ at the center. Travel whatever road is in front of me.

Snowshoes if necessary.

Honestly... what would happen if more of us stopped trying to look impressive and just became harder to stop?