Rev. Robert E Hayes, JCL 

Fr. Bob Hayes was born in 1944 in the original O’Connor Hospital, Race and San Carlos Streets, San Jose. He was baptized in St. Clare’s Church, Santa Clara, and attended St. Clare’s School. He completed four years at Bellarmine Prep and then another four years at UC-Berkeley before entering St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park in 1967.

He received his M.Div. degree and was ordained in 1971 in St. Mary’s Cathedral, San Francisco.  He was a parochial vicar in San Jose at St. Victor’s, at St. Christopher’s, and at St. Lucy’s, and served as Newman Chaplain at San Jose State and then vocation director for the new Diocese of San Jose. Fr. Bob was pastor of St. Anthony in New Almaden for 11 years during the campaign for and the building of the large church, and then became pastor of St. Joseph of Cupertino for eight years before joining the Marriage Tribunal ministry full-time.

During almost 50 years of priestly ministry, Fr. Bob completed MA degrees in Librarianship and Instructional Technology at San Jose State, Counseling-Psychology at Santa Clara University, and in October 2002 received his Canon Law degree from Catholic University in Washington, DC.  Until his mid 50’s he used to enjoy street-skating in the bike/skate  path along West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz and then in a cautious mood decided it might be time to stop.

Fr. Bob’s sister lives in Arizona, and his parents (who passed on long ago) grew up in the Boston area.  He is a US citizen by birth, but because his grandparents were all born in Ireland (Kerry, Waterford and Cork), Fr. Bob also has Irish citizenship by descent.