July 16, 2025
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Former Peru priest Soseman the subject of new book

Book tells story of a mission trip Soseman made to Novinger, Missouri

By Shaw Local News Network
COVID-19 has claimed the life of a Peru pastor. The Rev. Monsignor Richard Soseman, seen here serving Mass at St. Valentine's Catholic Church in Peru, died Wednesday after nearly two weeks in the hospital, most of it on a ventilator.

Still remembered fondly in Peru, the late Monsignor Richard Soseman rated no small mention in a new book available on Amazon. “The Latin Mass Lepers of Northeast Missouri and the Kindly Priest from Rome,” by author David J. Barton, tells the story of a successful mission trip Soseman made in 2016 to Novinger, Missouri.

The Rev. Monsignor Richard Soseman, the Peru pastor who died from COVID-19, is the subject of a new book available via Amazon.

“The Latin Mass Lepers of Northeast Missouri and the Kindly Priest from Rome,” by author David J. Barton, tells the story of a mission trip Soseman made in 2016 to Novinger, Missouri (population 534).

Soseman played a central role in a decision to begin a weekly celebration of the Latin Mass.

As Barton recalled it, Soseman volunteered to travel to the mission church and impressed the parishioners with his humility despite his impressive intellect and recent service in the Vatican. Soseman had served in the Congregation for the Clergy and worked to advance the cause of Venerable Fulton Sheen.

“He was as regular a guy as you’d meet at Tractor Supply, yet he was as brilliant as any top university professor you could find,” Barton said. “More than that, he was a holy priest interested in actively saving souls.

“He had nothing to gain but to save souls for Christ.”

After his service in Rome, Soseman returned to the Diocese of Peoria and served as pastor of the Peru Catholic Parishes before he contracted the novel coronavirus and died on Dec. 9, 2020. (Dec. 9 is, coincidentally, the date of Sheen’s death and could be his feast day if the former archbishop is ever canonized.)

The book is available only at Amazon in either paperback or kindle format.