Steven J. Raica
Steven John Raica was born on November 8, 1952, in Munising, in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, to Mary and Steve Raica. At seventeen he enrolled at Michigan State University, earning a mathematics degree, then took a master of divinity at St. John's Provincial Seminary in Plymouth and a master of arts in religious studies at the University of Detroit. He later took a licentiate and a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Lansing on October 14, 1978, by Bishop Kenneth Joseph Povish.
His Lansing ministry was parochial, judicial, and administrative. He served parishes in Burton, Flint, Ovid, Charlotte, and Bellevue, was co-rector of St. Mary Cathedral in Lansing and chaplain of Olivet College, and served as diocesan chancellor, on the tribunal as pro-synodal judge, promoter of justice, and judge, and in deaf ministry, fluent in American Sign Language. In 1998 St. John Paul II named him a prelate of honor. From 1999 to 2005 he was superior of Casa Santa Maria in Rome, the North American College graduate house, also spiritual director and adjunct faculty, before returning to Lansing as chancellor in 2005.
Pope Francis appointed him the fifth Bishop of Gaylord, Michigan, on June 27, 2014, and he was ordained and installed there on August 28, 2014. On March 25, 2020, the Solemnity of the Annunciation, he was appointed the fifth Bishop of Birmingham in Alabama, succeeding Bishop Robert J. Baker, and was installed at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Birmingham on June 23, 2020. He still holds the see in October 2026, with the motto Sursum corda, lift up your hearts.
- 2021-07-16Traditionis Custodes issued. Raica, in office in Birmingham since June 23, 2020, responded within two weeks with the decree recorded in the next action; no interim statement by him was needed to establish the act, which is the decree itself. ↗
- 2021-07-29Raica promulgated norms for the local implementation of Traditionis Custodes: Our Lady Help of Christians Parish, Huntsville, erected as a personal parish March 10, 2013, for the faithful seeking the usus antiquior, was judged effective for spiritual growth and retained; a dispensation under canon 87, section 1, from TC Art. 3, section 2, was granted to continue authorizing the Missale Romanum 1962 on any or all days of the year at the parish church of Blessed Sacrament, Birmingham; Mass according to the 1962 Missal was permitted to continue on any or all days of the year at Christ the King Chapel, Cullman (Simcoe); and the Very Reverend Justin L. Ward, Vicar for Sacred Liturgy, was named delegate for the motu proprio. Public Masses according to the 1962 Missal outside the three sites were barred from being scheduled. ↗
- 2026-09-01The Huntsville personal parish's September 2026 calendar still offered the Traditional Latin Mass on Sundays, showing the retained parish in operation more than five years after Raica's decree. The parish site describes itself as a personal parish of the Diocese of Birmingham offering the Traditional Latin Mass according to the 1962 form. ↗
Birmingham is a preserved diocese, and unusually for this batch the proof is a single primary document. On July 29, 2021, thirteen days after Traditionis Custodes, Bishop Raica promulgated norms for its local implementation that settled all three of the diocese's old-Mass sites at once. Our Lady Help of Christians Parish in Huntsville, erected as a personal parish on March 10, 2013, for the faithful seeking the usus antiquior, was judged effective for the spiritual growth of the faithful and retained, continuing as it had since its establishment. At Blessed Sacrament in Birmingham he granted a dispensation under canon 87, section 1, from Article 3, section 2, so that the Missale Romanum of 1962 could continue to be authorized there on any or all days of the year. At Christ the King Chapel in Cullman (Simcoe), where the resident priests and faithful were found not to deny the validity and legitimacy of the liturgical reform, Mass according to the 1962 Missal could likewise continue on any or all days of the year. He named Fr. Justin L. Ward, Vicar for Sacred Liturgy, as his delegate for the motu proprio.
That decree is a governing act of the bishop's own in the fullest sense: retention of a personal parish, a canonical dispensation for a parish church, and a dated determination for a chapel, all in one instrument, with the vernacular-readings norm settled for the three sites as well. It is also bounded, and the bound matters to the verdict. Public Masses according to the 1962 Missal outside the three designated sites were barred from being scheduled under any circumstances, and priests outside those sites could celebrate only non-scheduled, non-publicized, non-public Masses with explicit permission. Raica preserved what existed; he did not expand it, and the decree's own fence is why this dossier calls the posture preserved rather than expanded.
The present tense is less fully verified than the decree, and the dossier says so. The Huntsville personal parish is still in operation: its September 2026 calendar offers the Traditional Latin Mass on Sundays at 7:00, 8:45, 10:45, and 12:00, and its site describes it as a personal parish of the diocese offering the Mass according to the 1962 form. Current 2026 operation of Blessed Sacrament in Birmingham and Christ the King Chapel in Cullman was not re-verified in the sources consulted, so the present site count is left null rather than asserted as three. Within that stated limit, the board row agrees: Birmingham is preserved, by decree, and the decree is the evidence.