Fr. Benjamin Mac Lingo

Deacon Lingo was ordained a priest with the diocese of Oakland in the Fall of 2020. He was a regular Mass participant at our weekday Mass, especially during the summer when he was out of classes. He did his studies at a seminary in Massachusetts.

He graduated from Cal and noticed from his dorm window, folks feeding the homeless in People’s Park on Sunday morning. He later joined the Berkeley Catholic Worker with JC and others to serve food for the homeless, and that led to a deepening of his faith, which eventually led him to the priesthood.

Fr. Joseph Kim

Fr. Joe Kim was born in Poughkeepsie, New York but grew up in San Jose, attending grammar school at St. Frances Cabrini and Saratoga High School. He credits his paternal grandmother and his parents for initial evangelization and early discipleship at St Francis Cabrini and the Korean Catholic Church in San Jose. He credits his peers at the Newman Center at UC Berkeley for deepening his love for the Lord and the Church. Upon graduation from the College of Engineering at CAL, Fr Joe worked as a product engineer in Sunnyvale. Fr. Joe credits the young adult Korean Catholic Community and the witness of St. John Paul II for challenging him to act on the call of God. He discerned the priesthood in the vibrant, Catholic young adult community in the Priestly Discernment Program at Franciscan University in Steubenville, OH. He grew further in the vocation to priesthood at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park during which he spent his pastoral year at St John Vianney in 2007. Fr Joe was ordained in 2010 as a priest for the Diocese of San Jose by Bishop Patrick J. McGrath. Fr Joe comes to St. John Vianney after serving in parishes as a Parochial Vicar and Diocesan Vocations Director.  He has a License in Sacred Theology from the New Evangelization Program at Sacred Heart in Detroit, MI. He is working on completing a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome. His vocation, his ministry and his studies are rooted in the desire to live joyfully as a beloved son of God in the Lord Jesus Christ and help others to be the same.

Fr. Dat Tran, CSP ‘04

Fr. Dat was a Political Science major at Cal, graduating 2004. He entered the Paulists after college and was ordained a Paulist priest on May 28, 2011.

He is currently the rector of the cathedral at Grand Rapids, MI.

Fr. Dat was born in Vietnam.  As a boy, he immigrated with his family to California.  He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of California at Berkeley.  It was there that Fr. Dat met the Paulist Fathers at Newman Hall - Holy Spirit Parish, the Catholic campus ministry at Berkeley.

He was ordained in May, 2011, by then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York at our mother church, the Church of St. Paul the Apostle.

In his first assignment, Fr. Dat served as associate pastor at St. Paul the Apostle Church in Los Angeles.

After three years in that role, he returned to his Alma mater to became associate pastor at Newman Hall - Holy Spirit Parish.  He served there until 2016 when he began serving as our vocation director.

Learn more about Fr. Dat's life, and his own vocation story, at this profile.

Fr. Gil Martinez, CSP

Fr. Gil graduated from Cal with a Forestry degree. He worked for the National Park and joined the Paulist 1988. He was ordained May 13, 1995. He is currently serving as pastor of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Community in Los Angeles.

He served from 2006 to 2018 as pastor of our mother church, the Church of St. Paul the Apostle in New York City,

Fr. Gil made his first promises to the Paulist Fathers on August 5, 1989.

He was ordained a priest on May 13, 1995.

He has served as pastor at St. Sebastian Church in Los Angeles and St. Cyril of Alexandria Church in Tucson, AZ.

Prior to these assignments, Fr. Gil was director of campus ministry at the University of California at Berkeley.  His other assignments were at the Saint Jude Cancer Research Hospital in Memphis, TN, and associate director of the Paulist Center in Boston.

A native of El Paso, TX, Fr, Gil was reared in California.  He completed a bachelor of science degree in conservation of natural resources from the University of California at Berkeley.

He worked for seven years as a National Park Service Ranger at Grand Canyon and Big Bend National Parks before joining the Paulist novitiate.