Crosier Father Gregory (Greg) Herman Poser, 76, died March 5 at the Mille Lacs Health System Long Term Care facility in Onamia. The Mass of Christian Burial will be held at the Crosier Priory church in Onamia on Saturday, March 16, with the Reception of the Body and Office for the Dead at 9 a.m., followed by a time for keeping vigil and the funeral Mass at 11 a.m. Burial will be in the Crosier Priory cemetery. A luncheon prepared by the local parishes Father Poser served in will follow.
He was born Aug. 27, 1947, in Little Falls to Raymond and Elizabeth (Welle) Poser, the oldest of seven children, and grew up on the family farm in Lastrup. He attended St. John Nepomuk School in Lastrup and went on to Crosier Seminary in Onamia for high school and junior college. He graduated from St. Francis College and the Crosier House of Studies, both in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Father Poser entered the Crosier novitiate Aug. 27, 1967, and made his first profession of vows Aug. 28, 1968, in Hastings, Nebraska. He renewed his vows in 1971 and professed solemn vows in Fort Wayne on March 16, 1974. He was ordained to the priesthood May 10, 1975, in Fort Wayne.
He served in Residents Encounter Christ and other retreat programs, religious education, Crosier vocation and formation ministry, as well as parish work, with major parochial assignments at St. Odilia in Shoreview, Minnesota; St. Joseph in Kalamazoo, Michigan; and the south Mille Lacs cluster parishes of Holy Cross in Onamia, Sacred Heart in Wahkon, St. Rita in Hillman, and St. Therese in Vineland. He also served as a faculty member at STFT, the graduate school of theology in Abepura in Papua, Indonesia, from 1991-2002.
Father Poser is survived by his Crosier confreres; his siblings Clete, Severin (Mary), Gene (Sue), and Laura; his in-laws David Tripp and Maher Kadmiry; and a large extended family. He was preceded in death by grandparents Herman and Teresia Poser and George and Martha Welle; his parents; his sisters Lois Poser, Gladys Tripp, and Eileen Kadmiry; and a stillborn brother.
Memorials are preferred to the Crosier Fathers and Brothers, Box 500, Onamia, MN, 56359-0500.