Pastor's Page
Meet Father Hao Dinh:
2010 marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of Holy Family Parish and the beginning of Fr. Hao’s ministry as its 15th pastor. Fr. Hao is not new to us as he already served Holy Family as a parochial vicar from 2003-05, during which our parish celebrated its centennial.
He was born in Bien Hoa in 1958 in a family of six children and grew up in a suburb of Sai Gon, Viet Nam. He began his journey to the priesthood in 1969 when he entered St. Joseph’s Seminary in the capital city. After the fall of Sai Gon in 1975, his seminary formation was disrupted and interfered by the communist government. In 1982, just one year before he was supposed to be ordained, the seminary was shut down again. In 1985 he left Viet Nam for Canada to work and to discern his vocation. Three years later he joined the Diocese of San Jose and continued his studies at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. He was ordained a priest on May 15, 1993, exactly 24 years after the day he was accepted to the seminary in Sai Gon. Fr. Hao is one of four priests in his original class (2 in Viet Nam, 2 in the Bay Area –out of 68 seminarians).
Since his ordination, Fr. Hao was assigned to these parishes: St. Justin, St. Lawrence the Martyr, St. John the Baptist, Queen of Martyrs (later St. Patrick), Holy Family, and finally St. Thomas of Canterbury in Campbell where he was pastor for five years.
