Father Roger Gustafson
Biography

Father Roger was born and raised in a suburban neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia. Although raised a Lutheran as a result of his Scandinavian background, he was confirmed and brought into the Catholic Church in 1989 at the age of 24.

He earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Applied Biological Sciences from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a Master’s of Business Administration from Georgia State University. He worked as a health care administrator after college, managing four kidney dialysis centers in the Atlanta area and then received a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in Religion and Social Ethics in 2000, and a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago in 2002.

He practiced employment discrimination law as an attorney, but began to discern again a call to the diocesan priesthood in 2006 and was accepted to study at St. Patrick’s Seminary in August 2009. Father Roger was ordained to the priesthood on June 7, 2014.

​His first assignment was at St. Hilary Church in Tiburon and in 2016 became the Pastor of St. Brendan Church in San Francisco. Since July 2020, Father Roger has served as the Pastor of St. Hilary Church and the Administrator of St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Sausalito.