– The Catholic Diocese of Rapid City says Bishop Peter Muhich died Saturday at age 62 from esophageal cancer.
Muhich, who asked to be called Bishop Peter, had revealed his cancer diagnosis last July and released a statement on the diocese website last Wednesday saying that he had moved into hospice care
In it, he wrote that “Despite the best efforts of my health care team, all treatment options have been exhausted and there is no more that can be done without causing greater harm to my system,”
In the July Facebook post, Bishop Peter said an endoscopy ordered after several months of difficulty in swallowing food had found cancer in his lower esophagus.
Pope Francis appointed Muhich as bishop for the Rapid City Diocese, which serves Catholics in roughly the western half of South Dakota, in May 2020. A native of northern Minnesota, he was ordained a priest in 1989 for the Diocese of Duluth