Rev. Msgr. John F. Huhmann
Deceased: 2005-01-23
Diocese: KANSAS CITY-ST. JOSEPH
CSM Graduation Year: 1956
REV. MSGR. JOHN HUHMANN
CSM 1956
KANSAS CITY - Msgr. John F. Huhmann, who served the diocese nearly 55 years as chancellor and as pastor in active ministry, and as a retired priest until his health no longer permitted, died Jan. 23, 2005 at the Little Sisters of the Poor's Jeanne Jugan Center in Kansas City. He was 81.
Born in St. Elizabeth, Mo., Msgr. Huhmann was ordained for the then-Diocese of Kansas City on June 3, 1950, his 27th birthday, at Pontifical College Josephinium in Worthington, Ohio.
In 1952, then-Bishop Edwin V. O'Hara appointed him as diocesan chancellor. He was the last chancellor of the Diocese of Kansas City, and the first chancellor of the new Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, serving in the post until 1957. During that time, he earned a licentiate in canon law from Catholic University of America, and a doctorate in canon law from the Angelicum in Rome.
After his service as chancellor, he served one year as assistant pastor at Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Kansas City, then was appointed as the first resident pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Richmond.
Msgr. Huhmann later served as pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Butler and St. Columban Parish in Chillicothe before he was appointed as the founding pastor of St. Thomas More Parish in Kansas City, a position he held for the parish's first 11 years.
Msgr. Huhmann then served as pastor of St. Andrew Parish in Gladstone before returning to Pontifical College Josephinum as treasurer and instructor.
He returned to the diocese in 1982 and was appointed pastor of St. Stephen Parish, now Our Lady of Peace Parish, in Kansas City, and later served as pastor of St. Sabina Parish in Belton until his retirement in 1989.
He was elevated to papal chamberlain in 1961 and to domestic prelate in 1968.
During his seminary years, he developed a love for farming and for physical labor.
After his retirement from active ministry, he continued to work at the Effertz Bros. Farm near Belton during the summer wheat harvests and fall soybean harvests until he was well into his 70s.
In a 1999 story about his harvest work, Msgr. Huhmann, then 76, told The Catholic Key that he began working the summer wheat harvest with travelling crews in the 1940s to earn money for his seminary studies. He said he earned $10 a day, plus room and board.
"I thought it was a good way to earn money and not spend it," he said.
The work was physically demanding, but it reinforced a philosophy about life and work, he said.
"If you are doing something you don't like, then like what you are doing," he told The Key. "In other words, change your liking instead of your doing. It will have an effect."
A funeral Mass was scheduled to be celebrated at St. Thomas More Parish on Jan. 26. Burial was to be at St. Lawrence Parish Cemetery, St. Elizabeth.
