lit a candle 9h agoCame across this story by chance this morning and couldn't stop reading about the outpouring in Quincy. 85 years old, decades given to one community. Strange how a stranger's grief can still land.
Their story
Reverend Monsignor Michael "Father Mike" Kuse was a Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois who spent five decades in parish and diocesan ministry, most of them as a familiar pastor in his hometown of Quincy. He died on 5 November 2026 at Blessing Hospital in Quincy…
Reverend Monsignor Michael "Father Mike" Kuse was a Roman Catholic priest of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois who spent five decades in parish and diocesan ministry, most of them as a familiar pastor in his hometown of Quincy. He died on 5 November 2026 at Blessing Hospital in Quincy at the age of 85.
Kuse was born in Quincy in July 1941, the son of Maurice R. Kuse and Shirley Marie Schmidt Kuse. He was baptised at St. Rose of Lima, attended grade school at St. Boniface, and graduated from Notre Dame High School in Quincy in 1959. He studied for the priesthood for a year in Springfield and then for seven years at Mundelein Seminary. He was ordained on 20 May 1967 and began his ministry at Christ the King Parish in Springfield.
Across the next half century he served in all seven deaneries of the diocese, with parish assignments that included Springfield, Collinsville, Decatur, Effingham, Villa Grove, Hume, Brocton and Jacksonville. He also directed vocations for the diocese from 1988 to 2000. In the mid-1990s he returned to Quincy as pastor of St. Mary Parish, and in 2006 he became founding pastor of the newly formed Blessed Sacrament Parish. He received the title of monsignor in 2002 and served as dean of the Quincy Deanery, as well as spiritual adviser to the Ladies of Charity and the Deanery Council of Catholic Women. In interviews he spoke of baptising children, later marrying them, and then baptising their children, calling that continuity a wonderful gift.
Local coverage remembered him as a gentleman priest and a bedrock figure for Catholic life in Quincy: a mentor to younger clergy such as Father Tom Donovan, an advocate for parish schools during difficult reorganisation years, and a pastor whose smile was a fixture of parish life. He officially retired on 30 June 2017 after celebrating his fiftieth jubilee in the priesthood, but chose to remain in Quincy near family and friends. His mother Shirley had died in 2013 and his brother Greg in 2022.
He died at Blessing Hospital on 5 November 2026. Visitation was set for 11 November and a Mass of Christian Burial for 12 November at Blessed Sacrament Church, with arrangements by Duker and Haugh Funeral Home. No cause of death has been made public. Quincy television station WGEM and the Herald-Whig reported an outpouring of community remembrance for the man parishioners simply called Father Mike.
Biography adapted from WGEM, Quincy Herald-Whig (2013 and 2017 profiles and 2026 death notice), Duker and Haugh funeral notices, Effingham Radio jubilee note.
In their own words
“A church is more than the brick and mortar.”
Interview with the Quincy Herald-Whig, March 2013
“I have married many couples and later baptized their children ... and then their grandchildren. It's all been a wonderful gift.”
Herald-Whig interview on his retirement, May 2017
Photos
1Monsignor Michael Kuse
by People Forever
