Fr. Brendan McGuire
Pastor, St. Simon Parish

 

Fr. Brendan McGuire has served as Pastor of St. Simon Parish since 2023, bringing with
him a rare combination of gifts: the heart of a pastor, the mind of an engineer, and a
lifelong commitment to building communities where every person belongs. A native of
Ireland and an ordained priest of the Diocese of San José, Fr. Brendan has spent more
than two decades walking alongside families, celebrating life’s greatest milestones, and
guiding people through its hardest moments.

Ministry at St. Simon
At St. Simon, Fr. Brendan’s ministry is rooted in his belief that a parish is far more than
a congregation — it is a family. He preaches with honesty and warmth, celebrates the
sacraments with reverence, and invests personally in the life of every ministry and
program that makes St. Simon such a vibrant community. Whether he is blessing a
newborn at Baptism, sitting with a family in grief, or cheering on students at St. Simon
School, he brings the same attentiveness and care.
Fr. Brendan is passionate about welcoming those who are new to the faith or returning
after time away. He leads the parish’s OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults)
community and has made hospitality — especially for new parishioners, young adults,
and families — a hallmark of his time at St. Simon. His vision for the parish is bold: a
community genuinely open to all, where people from every background encounter the
love of God.

Leadership in the Diocese of San José
Fr. Brendan’s service extends well beyond Los Altos. Over more than twelve years as
Vicar General and Special Advisor to the Bishop of San José, he helped lead the diocese
through significant moments of strategic planning, stewardship, and educational
renewal. He founded the Drexel School System, a collaborative model that transformed
Catholic elementary education across the diocese and became a national benchmark for
how Catholic schools can thrive together. He also serves as founding Board Chair of St.
Joseph Financial Services (SJFS), which supports Catholic and nonprofit organizations
across the country.

Faith and Technology
Before his ordination, Fr. Brendan worked in Silicon Valley as an engineer and
technology executive, earning degrees in Engineering and Computer Science from
Trinity College Dublin and completing the Executive Program at Stanford University’s
Graduate School of Business. That formation gave him a front-row seat to both the

promise and the peril of the digital age — and it shaped his conviction that the Church
has a responsibility to engage technology’s development, not simply react to it.
In 2019, he co-founded the Institute for Technology, Ethics and Culture (ITEC), a
formal partnership between Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied
Ethics and the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education. ITEC brings together
leaders from business, academia, and faith to bring moral clarity to the challenges of
artificial intelligence. Most recently, Fr. Brendan worked alongside Vatican Bishop Paul
Tighe and SCU ethicist Brian Green to help shape the ethical framework governing how
Claude — the AI system developed by Anthropic — reasons through complex moral
questions.

Retreats & Speaking Ministry
Fr. Brendan is a sought-after speaker and retreat leader who brings parishes and clergy
communities together across the country. His parish missions and clergy retreats draw
on his own journey of faith, his years of pastoral experience, and his gift for making the
Gospel feel immediate and alive. He leads retreats and missions on topics including:
• Stewardship: From Gratitude to Joy
• Atomic Habits of Prayer
• Forgiveness
• Parish Leadership
• Death and Dying: How to Live and Die Well

To inquire about having Fr. Brendan speak at your parish, clergy event, or diocesan
gathering, please contact the St. Simon Parish Office.

Writing
Fr. Brendan is the author of Weaving the Divine Thread and has two forthcoming
books: The Soul of AI: A Priest, an Algorithm, and the Search for Wisdom and From
Here to Eternity: How to Live and Die Well. His writing reflects the same spirit that
animates his ministry: honest, hopeful, and grounded in the ordinary holiness of
everyday life.

Fr. Brendan lives in Los Altos, California, where he continues to write, preach, and guide the St. Simon community — and communities across the country — toward gratitude, belonging, and joy.