Father Frank M. Hull, SSJ, was born in Philadelphia in 1923 and is a graduate of St. Thomas More High School there.
He served with the Army Air Corps during World War II and in 1948 began his preparations to be a Josephite priest at Epiphany Apostolic College in Newburgh, NY. He was ordained in Washington, D.C. in 1957 and after a year of studies at Catholic University of America, he was assigned to teach at St. Augustine High School in New Orleans, LA.
In 1960, Father Hull began a history of internal Josephite assignments: forming future Josephites for ministry, as editor of The Josephite Harvest and on the Josephite General Council as an Area Director, and finally directing the Josephite Archives. Those many years of service were broken periodically by parish ministry.
In Josephite formation, he served three years on the faculty of Epiphany Apostolic College, six years as spiritual director and one year as vice rector at St. Joseph Seminary.
While pastoring at St. David parish in New Orleans, he served six years as spiritual director and on the board of admissions at the Josephite House of Studies which had replaced Epiphany Apostolic College.
In 1963 he became the editor of The Josephite Harvest, a position he would hold for the next 14 years while carrying out seminarian formation and parish ministry in three parishes in Washington, D.C., Houston and New Orleans and returning to St. Augustine High School as rector of the faculty house.
The Josephites in Louisiana called him to serve on the Josephite General Council as Area Director from 1987-91 and the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. Josephites called him to serve again as Area Director from 1999-2003.
His parish ministry began in 1977 at Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish in Houston, followed by 17 years of pastorates of St. Raymond, St. Joan of Arc and St. David parishes in New Orleans.
From there he moved to Washington, D.C., where after a one-year assignment to St. Joseph Seminary, he served as pastor of St. Benedict the Moor and St. Vincent de Paul in Washington, D.C., and then ten years as pastor of St. Joseph parish in Alexandria, VA.
He retired briefly in 2012 only to step up in his late 80’s to do the last of his parish ministry at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church in Washington, D.C., for one year and then moved on to be the director of the Josephite Archives in Baltimore until it moved in 2016 to St. Joseph Seminary in Washington, D.C., where he served well into his 90’s.
Please use this YouTube link for funeral Mass of Fr. Frank and Fr. Joe. https://youtu.be/YvUfhXA06-c
The following is a link to the Facebook event for “LIVE-Funeral for Fr. Frank Hull SSJ + Fr. Joseph McKinley, SSJ” on June 3rd from 10:00am – 12:00pm: https://www.facebook.com/events/245421196742374/
