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Fr. Kunst & Seminarian, Ben Sundie, Carry Mon. Buh to His Resting Place at Holy Rosary Cathedral
And for your convenience, here is a link to contact the Curator!
http://www.papalartifacts.com/contact-us/
Here is a link to the Mon. Joseph Buh website:
https://josephbuh.org
Case for Minnesota’s First Saint Advances to the Vatican
After a two-year process, the Diocese of Duluth awaits word from The Vatican on whether Monsignor Joseph Buh—a Slovenian immigrant to the region—could be Minnesota’s first saint, and the nation’s 12th
In Duluth, the body of the union founder, editor of an immigrant newspaper, speaker of seven languages, missionary and, perhaps, one a saint, was laid to rest ahead of St. Joseph’s side altar in the Holy rosary Cathedral two years ago.
In 2024, the remains of Monsignor Joseph Buh were exhumed from Calvary Cemetery, and his crypt fitting reads, “Patriarch of the Diocese of Duluth,” the Northern Minnesota Diocese for which he founded 57 parishes from Brainerd to Ely. This designation also includes the Diocese of Crookston.
Whether he’ll eventually move under the altar, an honor reserved for saints, remains to be determined in the process of canonization. His case was voted to move forward—in what the Rev. Richard Kunst of St. James’ Parish in Duluth said was a unanimous decision—on June 10 at the United States Conference of catholic bishops.
Canonization is the process through which a deceased individual may become a saint, or is confirmed through an extensive research process to be in heaven. There are five key steps. As of right now, the case for Monsignor Buh is awaiting confirmation to proceed with the second step, which is the investigation done into the figure’s life. As of July 2026, 11 of 10,000 saints recognized by the Catholic Church have come from the United States.
The booklet, Missionary Priest for a Missionary Time,” written by Kunst, chronicled a biography which informed much of the movement as it picked up locally, a brief summation of which follows.
In 1864 Monsignor Buh arrived in St. Paul. He initially worked as a professor to seminarians in what is now the Twin Cities, then moved to Crow Wing where he learned the Chippewa language and became an apostle to the region’s Indigenous peoples.
Parochial vicar of St. Francis in Brainerd, Jacob Toma, said of the hardships he recalls from readings from the monsignor, many were environmental due to bitter cold—missionaries at the time snowshoed from community to community.
“He remembers that it was just so cold, and he thought that he was going to die from just freezing,” Toma said. “He couldn’t find his hands and his mittens, and he asked himself, ‘Why?” “This was such a terrible idea, because he talks about how bitter cold it was, how he would never forget that night that he had to sleep out under the stars and just freeze to death almost,”
In 1865 he began a mission in Lake Winnibigoshish. He eventually moved to Belle Prairie where he ministered for 12 years, assimilating to the Indigenous way of living and preaching to immigrant populations who lived alongside them. Bishop Seidenbusch handed him missions of Northern Minnesota’s entirety in 1888, with an emphasis on Iron Range towns.
“One of the unique things about our diocese is that we cover such a vast area of land,” Toma said. “You could be 30,30, 40 minutes from the next priest, just driving in between, and because of that, we kind of have this identity as a missionary priest, right, to go out to the far-flung woods of northern Minnesota to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.”
He played the harmonium and organ, painted portraits and established “Americanski Slovenec.”—the United States’ first Slovenian newspaper—in 1891. For seven years he was the primary editor and publisher, overseeing much of its operation from typesetting to layout copy and printing until 1898. The discovery of iron ore in Minnesota sprung mining towns during his missionary efforts in the region. In response to the labor violations miners faced, Buh founded the American Slovene Catholic Uni9on. When an economic crash hit the nation in 1893, Buh purchased a two-story building which he operated as a relief station and shelter for the unemployed.
Monsignor Buh died the vicar general of the diocese in 1922 at the age of 88. He received the title of Monsignor in 1899 from Pope Leo XIII. (In 2014, Pope Francis abolished the future use of the monsignor title—which denotes a specific honor—for most priests.)
Kunst said he was tapped by Bishop Felton—who presented Buh’s case at the conference—to gather information regarding a possible cause for sainthood. He also oversaw the exhumation process.
“I was born and raised in the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota and have given my life to the Diocese, and I’ve always known him to be the patriarch, and so, because he’s the patriarch of the diocese, he’s a big deal here,” Kunst said. “And so it was pretty powerful to have him exhumed. I used to work at the cemetery when I was in seminary, so it heightened the sense of awareness in regards to his presence there, and then, to be part of that exhumation process was really, really quite amazing. It was humbling.”
Kunst said there’s currently a petition written and addressed to the office within the Vatican that works on the canonization process. Kunst said given the Vatican’s usual summer slowing of operations and eventual closure for the month of August, the earliest the verdict would appear is September given that nothing materialized by the end of last month. If the Vatican provides a positive response, Monsignor Buh will receive the official title of servant of God.
“That’s when the investigative process really goes into full throttle in regards to investigating all of his writings.” Kunst said. “For example anybody that would have had any knowledge of him on a firsthand level, and so we just get to do a much more thorough investigation of his life and his writings after we get the approval to move forward from the Vatican.”
Bishop Felton said there’d be an expansion of the historical commission assembled to evaluate all of the monsignor’s relationships and writings, an extensive process given that he wrote and spoke seven languages. “It’s just to make sure that there’s nothing about the person or the events and experiences of that person’s life that would question people as to whether he’s called to be canonized as a saint, or as a great inspirational example of our common call to holiness,” Felton said.
Internal medicine physician and host of the Catholic podcast, “Evangelization and Culture,” Tod Worner hosted canon lawyer Monsignor Robert Sarno in an episode highlighting what constitutes sainthood. In the episode, Monsignor Sarno—who spent 40 years working with the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints—said canonization is meant to highlight an individual’s life path as an example for conscience in their specific circumstance. Sarno said sanctity is a major component not always determined merely through action, in that it belies motivation outside of one’s own gain.
In an interview, Worner said that while saints are ultimately mortal and therefore not perfect, there is a certain criterion of morality decided by a multitude of individuals. Worner said the process is more bureaucratic and cut-and-dry than some might think of a religious process, and likened the process of making a bill into law.
“We are not interested in the canonization of somebody,” Worner said. “We are interested in the truth, so the door shuts on some people, or it just stays open.”
If this passes, Monsignor Buh would be considered venerable. The next step toward sainthood requires two confirmed miracles. After the first miracle, he’d be beatified. The second qualifies sainthood. Worner said the notion of a miracle—independent of martyrdom—is twofold:
“Either it is something that is scientifically, medically inexplicable by the means of how we define explicable,” Worner said, “Or they personally performed a miracle during their life. But in some respects, I think the performance of a miracle has to be identified either through their intercession, you’ve prayed with them—you’re not worshiping them.”
Worner said the term “devil’s advocate” comes from the process meant to investigate a potential saint’s actions and the grounds under which claims of miracles were evaluated.
“One of these things Monsignor Sarno says is that saints are saints in heaven, whether we dub them a canonization or not, whether we canonize them or not,” Worner said. “So, the process of canonization is a little bit more for humanity than it is for the saints.”
Kunst said there were some undocumented claims of miraculous cures prior to when records of such occurrences would be kept, dating back to the 1950s. He said due to this lack of formalized recording, they’re unusable. Holy cards of the monsignor have been distributed with a written prayer.
“If some unexplained prayer was answered, and you were praying to Monsignor Buh, please get back to us and let us know, so that we can make that as part of the process, Kunst said.
