Jun 27, 2014
by MOSAIC Editorial Team
It is always an honor and a reason for celebrating when a new bishop is named for a diocese within the state of Michigan. So, with heartfelt congratulations, rector Msgr. Todd Lajiness and the students, faculty, and staff of Sacred Heart Major Seminary ask God's blessings upon the appointment of Msgr. Steven J. Raica as the fifth Bishop of Gaylord.
The July 27 appointment by Pope Francis is a special honor for the seminary. Bishop-elect Raica is a 1974 graduate of Sacred Heart Major Seminary. When he is ordained on August 28 at St. Mary Cathedral in Gaylord, he will become the twenty-eighth alumnus of the seminary to join the rank of the episcopate. (Bishop Frank Kalabat of the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle became the latest bishop-alumnus on June 14.)
In his public statement of acceptance, Bishop-elect Raica, a priest of the Diocese of Lansing and currently its chancellor, acknowledges the providential character of the Sacred Heart of Jesus throughout his priestly journey. His home parish is Sacred Heart Parish in Munising, Michigan, where he also attended elementary school. He notes that he received his undergraduate philosophical education at Sacred Heart College Seminary in Detroit. He served in the early-2000s as superior at the graduate residence of North American College in Rome. It was here that Pope Pius IX named Margaret Mary Alacoque a Servant of God. It was to St. Margaret Mary that Christ appeared requesting worldwide devotion to his Sacred Heart.
Monsignor Lajiness says that the state of Michigan has another devoted shepherd to lead the people of God and asks the seminary community and its supporters to pray for Bishop-elect Raica during this time of transition. Diocese of Lansing Bishop Earl Boyea, who is a Sacred Heart alumnus from the class of of 1973 and served in the 1990s as the seminary's dean of studies, calls the new bishop-elect an intelligent, cultured, pastoral, gentle, and faith-filled leader of the Church.
Our loss is Gaylord's gain, Bishop Boyea says.
Bishop-elect Raica will succeed Most Rev. Bernard Hebna, who was installed as Coadjutor Archbishop of the Newark archdiocese in November 2013.
MOSAIC Editorial Team