New council includes one friar, Bro. Bill Hugo, OFM Cap., who serves at Detroit’s Solanus Casey Center 

DETROIT — The Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Joseph announced Nov. 19 it has elected new leadership to serve three-year terms.

Bro. Mark Joseph Costello, OFM Cap., was elected to lead the Detroit-based province, which has friaries, retreat houses and parishes in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois and Montana. He will succeed Bro. Michael Sullivan, OFM Cap., as provincial minister. 

Bro. Costello, a native of Fond du Lac, Wis., who entered the Capuchin order in 1982 and was ordained in 1991, has served for the past five years as pastor of several parishes on the Crow reservation in Montana. 

Helping advise Bro. Costello will be a new provincial council, also elected to three-year terms. Provincial vicar Bro. Steve Kropp will be joined by councilors Bro. Bill Hugo, Bro. Zoilo “Zoy” Garibay, and Bro. Tien Dinh. 

The new council and provincial minister will begin their ministry on Nov. 29.

"The newly appointed council and I hope to serve the friars as they fraternally reach out in ministry to the people of God, especially the poor and marginalized,” Bro. Costello said in a statement. “We realize we have been entrusted as servant leaders. We will do our utmost to support the continuing vision of St. Francis of Assisi in time-honored and new creative ways. We ask for prayers of support as we face today's challenges.”

Bro. Kropp served as provincial vicar and director of formation for post-novitiate and ministry formation for the province under the previous administration. Bro. Hugo ministers at the Detroit-based Solanus Casey Center and formerly was director of the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. Bro. Garibay is rector of St. Lawrence Seminary in Mt. Calvary, Wis., and Bro. Dinh serves as associate pastor of St. Dennis Parish in Crow Agency, Mont.

The Capuchins elect new leadership ever three years during the province’s triennial chapter meeting. However, because of COVID-19, this year’s meeting was canceled, and the new provincial leadership was chosen by the Capuchin General Curia in Rome based on a vote of the friars in the province. 

The next chapter meeting will take place in 2023.