Submitted
VICTORIA — In its triennial Chapter at St. Fidelis Friary, Victoria, Mar. 19-23, the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Conrad elected and installed a new slate of officers: Fr. David Songy, provincial minister; Fr. Sojan Parappilly, provincial vicar: Frs. Joseph Mary Elder, Frank Grinko, and Donald Rank, provincial councilors.
During the Chapter, the Province also voted to begin a new friary in the Diocese of Wichita, Kans., and discussed a new international friary which five friars from three Pan-American conferences will begin later this summer near the U.S.-Mexican border at Alamo, Tex.
Fr. William Kraus, representing the St. Conrad Province and the North American Pacific Conference will serve as guardian of the new community, and was commissioned as a missionary to the Alamo friary. Two friars from other U.S. provinces and friars from Mexico and Brazil will complete the new Capuchin border presence.
The St. Conrad Province, consisting of 56 priests, 12 solemnly professed lay friars and eight other young men in Capuchin formation, currently serve in the archdioceses of Denver, Kansas City in Kansas, and San Antonio, the dioceses of Colorado Springs, Salina, Kans., and Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., and the Capuchin Mission in Papua New Guinea.
Archbishop-emeritus Stephen Reichert of Madang, Papua New Guinea, and Archbishop-emeritus Charles Chaput of Philadelphia are also members of the St. Conrad Province.