Fr. Mulcahy and the six elected diffinitors (from left): Fr. William Garrott, OP; Fr. Joseph Fox, OP; Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP; Fr. Brian Mulcahy, OP; Fr. William Marquis, OP; Fr. James Mary Sullivan, OP; Fr. Jordan Mary Turano, OP.

Province of St. Joseph
Dominican friars elect Mulcahy as prior provincial

The Very Rev. Brian Martin Mulcahy, OP, was elected Prior Provincial of the Dominican Province of St. Joseph during the Provincial Chapter meeting in June at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island. His election was confirmed by the Master of the Order, Most Rev. Carlos Alfonso Azpiroz Costa, OP, and is effective immediately. Father Mulcahy, age 48, has served as the Vicar Provincial, or Socius, of the province since January 2009.

Founded in 1805, the Province of St. Joseph is one of four self-governing Dominican provinces established in the United States. With headquarters in New York City, the province is comprised of the six New England states, the Middle Atlantic states, Kentucky, and Ohio. It oversees a mission in Eastern Africa and supports other international Dominican missions in Pakistan, Peru, and the Solomon Islands. The province was instrumental in establishing Providence College in 1917; it is the only college or university in the United States operated by the Dominican Friars.

Elected to a four-year term, Father Mulcahy succeeds the Very Rev. D. Dominic Izzo, O.P., who served as Provincial since 2002. According to the Constitutions of the Dominican Order, the primary duties of the Prior Provincial are to promote “the authentic spirit and life of the Order” in his province; to keep “the common good of the Order very much at heart;” and to “promote cooperation between the province and the hierarchy and between the province and other religious families so that the needs of the local Church may be understood better and provided for more satisfactorily.”

There are nearly 300 Dominican friars in the Province of St. Joseph. This year, 21 men have been accepted as novitiates, the largest number in nearly 50 years. With these, there will be 58 men in formation for the Province of St. Joseph.

Born in Harare, Zimbabwe, to parents who were career diplomats with the U.S. Foreign Service, Father Mulcahy graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in English in 1984. He entered the Dominican novitiate, made his first profession of vows in 1985, and was ordained in 1990, pursuing studies for the priesthood at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception (Dominican House of Studies) in Washington, D.C.

Previous to his appointment as Vicar Provincial and Socius, Father Mulcahy served as pastor and superior at St. Thomas Aquinas University Parish in Charlottesville, Virginia, from 2002-08. His other assignments have included service as parochial vicar of St. Mary’s Church in New Haven, Connecticut; a staff member on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome; hospital ministry in New York City; chaplain to the Monastery of Dominican Nuns in Buffalo, New York; sub-prior and parochial vicar at St. Dominic’s Church in Youngstown, Ohio, as well as director of the Newman Center at Youngstown State University.

For more information about the Dominican Province of St. Joseph, visit their web site at www.op-stjoseph.org.