Monsignor, founder of baby supply center, departs parish

Monsignor James Kruse has left the Magi Baby Chest and been reassigned from his post at St. Louis Parish in Princeton.

Kruse founded the Magi Baby Chest, a charitable baby supply center, in 2022. Since then, the closet has distributed nearly 60,000 diapers, more than 4,000 containers of baby food, more than 500 cans of formula, and more than 100 new car seats, according to its website.

Kruse did all the shopping for the baby supplies and personally called waiting numbers and greeted every family that visited the closet, Magi Baby Chest Director Jessica Murphy said.

“As some of you already know, Msgr. Kruse was extremely generous to our families and would often give above and beyond to those families in great need,” Murphy said in a May 29 Facebook post on the group’s page. “Sometimes he would personally shop with them, happy to overflow their basket with items.”

Kruse is an avid puzzle enthusiast and the name of the Magi Baby Chest was inspired by his puzzle of the nativity.

“It just so happened that in the summer of 2022, while he was contemplating the name of this new charitable organization, he looked down at his puzzle and was inspired by the three wise men or ‘magi.’ He could see the great love and radical hospitality that the magi showed to baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

“Thank you Msgr. Kruse for all the time, effort, and love you’ve poured out onto the Magi Baby Chest. You will be greatly missed. God bless you.”

Kruse has been reassigned to a parish in Danville.

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