As a priest, Raica served in various parishes in Burton, Flint, Ovid, Charlotte and Bellevue. He served as co-rector of Lansing's St. Mary Cathedral and chaplain of Olivet College in Olivet.
He was also superior of Casa Santa Maria, the North American College's graduate studies house in Rome. He served as spiritual director and adjunct faculty at the college from 1999-2005.
From 2007-2009, he was vice postulator of the sainthood cause of Servant of God Antonietta Meo, a devout Italian girl who died of cancer at the age of six in 1937.
Raica is also a music lover with an affinity for classical, jazz, classical organ, and choral music. He enjoys reading, cooking, travel and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, according to the Diocese of Gaylord in 2014.
The bishop holds a doctorate in canon law from the Gregorian University in Rome.
He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Canon 1529 of the Code of Canon Law, which concerns a judge's role in collecting evidence in canonical trials.
As a priest, he served on the Lansing diocese's tribunal as a pro-synodal judge, the promoter of justice, and a tribunal judge.
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency's senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.