Paul John Reuter

Paul John Reuter was born to Robert and Anne Reuter in Detroit, Michigan, on August 13th, 1946. In 1955, Robert Reuter relocated his family to Torrance, California, to work in the Los Angeles area. Robert and Anne had three children: Robert, Paul, and Marianne. 

Paul graduated from Bishop Montgomery High School in Torrance, California, and worked at The Daily Breeze Newspaper during college. He graduated from El Camino College with a degree in police science. He then attended the Los Angeles Police Academy and was assigned to the Torrance division, where he served for 10 years. 

After Vatican II, when the new Mass was implemented, he sought out priests who kept the Traditional Latin Mass and often attended Mass in homes rather than accept the radical changes in the Church. He encouraged his family to do the same. 

Paul often attended the Traditional Latin Mass at St. Matthias Church in Huntington Park, California. Msgr Patrick Shear was the Pastor there for 22 years, from 1954 until a forced retirement in 1976. Msgr Shear offered the Traditional Mass publicly until 1976 and privately in retirement. Even from retirement, he encouraged people to keep the Traditional Mass. 

During his years at St. Matthias Church, Paul met fellow parishioners Benedetto and Mary Dituri and developed a strong friendship with the Dituri family. This friendship continued even after the Dituri family moved to Washington State in 1972. After Mary Dituri’s funeral on October 18th, 2024, Paul told his family that he had lost one of his best friends of over 50 years. 

A few years later, in 1977, to more freely attend the Traditional Mass, Paul took an early retirement package from the Torrance Police Department and moved to Long Lake, Washington, investing in a farm on the Spokane River. His father, mother, sister, Marianne, and her husband Stan Matel all bought neighboring property on the same river. As they had all lived near the ocean in California, the riverfront property provided a meager substitute and allowed many water activities, which Paul and his extended family loved. 

At this time, Paul attended Mass with a handful of Catholics in Fr. Edward DeBusschere’s makeshift basement chapel in Spokane, Washington. On November 16, 1979, Paul exchanged wedding vows with Margaret Dituri in the same makeshift basement chapel. Paul and Margaret were blessed with seven children: Andrew, Steven, Michael, Marion, Daniel, Louis, and Joseph. 

The congregation soon outgrew the chapel of Father DeBusschere's little mission in Spokane. Father DeBusschere was in regular contact with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and constantly asked the Archbishop to send priests of the SSPX to the Spokane area. This eventually led to the SSPX establishing the Immaculate Conception Church and Academy in Post Falls, Idaho. Paul would drive his family just over an hour to attend Sunday Mass at the new Immaculate Conception Church. Each week, the family would also attend Wednesday Mass at the Carmel of the Holy Trinity in Spokane, Washington. 

During this time, Paul often volunteered his time on Saturdays to help at the Immaculate Conception Church and spent many Saturdays volunteering at St. Dominic’s school. He was a volunteer and employee at Immaculate Conception Church for over thirty years. 

Paul loved his riverfront property and wanted to spend his life there. Still, after much prayer and deliberation, he decided to make the sacrifice of moving again as an investment in his children’s future. Knowing that the traditions of the Church would be preserved through Catholic schools and wanting to ensure that his family would have easier access to the sacraments, Paul moved his family to a 10-acre property six miles north of the Immaculate Conception Church in 1996. He spent the last 28 years of his life in that home. 

He was very grateful to God that his children kept the Faith. Five of his children are happily married, and one of his sons is a Catholic Priest. His youngest son is single and is in the final stages of becoming a Certified Public Accountant. Paul was blessed with 20 grandchildren and loved spending Sunday afternoons with them. 

He had a great devotion to the Holy Rosary and the Pour Souls in Purgatory. He would pray the 15 decades of the Rosary every day and would add a Novena for the poor Souls after every family Rosary. He would visit the cemetery every day in November and instilled into his family the importance of visiting cemeteries and praying for the souls in purgatory whenever they passed a graveyard. 

On November 8th, the Octave of All Souls Day, as he and his wife were about to pray the evening Rosary, he was called by God with sudden cardiac arrest. 

 May he rest in peace. 

Paul John Reuter is preceded in death by his parents, Robert (1983), Anne (2003), sister-in-law Sandra (2009) brother-in-law Stan (2014) brother Robert (2019), mother-in-law Mary Dituri (2024). 

Paul is survived by his wife, Margaret, father-in-law, Benedetto Dituri, sister, Marianne Matel, and his children and grandchildren: 

Andrew and Kelly Reuter and their three children 

Father Steven Reuter, SSPX 

Michael and Amanda Reuter and their five children

 Joseph and Marion Martin and their five children 

Daniel and Katherine Reuter and their four children

 Louis and Mary Reuter and their three children 

Joseph Paul Reuter