Fr. Brendan McGuire is a Catholic priest, author, and national speaker whose work spans parish leadership, Catholic education, and the ethics of emerging technology. A native of Ireland, he holds degrees in Engineering and Computer Science from Trinity College Dublin and Theology from St. Patrick's Seminary and University, and completed the Executive Program at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business.

Before his ordination, Fr. Brendan worked in Silicon Valley as an engineer and technology executive. That formation has shaped his lifelong conviction that technology is neither neutral nor inevitable, and that the Church has a responsibility to engage its development seriously.

Ordained in 2000 in the Diocese of San José, he currently serves as Pastor of St. Simon Parish in Los Altos, California. He previously served sixteen years as Pastor of Holy Spirit Parish and more than twelve years as Vicar General and Special Advisor to two bishops, leading diocesan efforts in strategic planning, education reform, and stewardship.

Parish & Diocesan Leadership

Fr. Brendan is the founder of the Drexel School System, which transformed Catholic elementary education in the diocese by helping schools thrive collaboratively rather than struggle independently. The model reshaped the entire diocesan school network and became a national benchmark for Catholic education. He is also the founding Board Chair of St. Joseph Financial Services (SJFS), serving Catholic and nonprofit organizations nationwide.

At the Intersection of Faith and Technology

In 2019, Fr. Brendan 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 convenes thought leaders from business, academia, and faith communities to bring moral clarity to the challenges of artificial intelligence and disruptive technologies. Its publication, Ethics in the Age of Disruptive Technologies: An Operational Roadmap (The ITEC Handbook), offers practical frameworks for applying ethical standards that honor human dignity and the common good, and is now in active use across the technology industry.

In 2024 and 2025, when Anthropic, the AI safety company and maker of the Claude AI system, reached out to the Vatican for ethical guidance, Fr. Brendan worked alongside Vatican Bishop Paul Tighe and Santa Clara University ethicist Brian Green to help shape the Claude Constitution, the 23,000-word document governing how Claude reasons through complex moral questions.

Fr. Brendan believes the Church has a vital role in bringing people of good will together to ensure that technology serves humanity rather than controls it — and that Silicon Valley and the Vatican have more to say to each other than either yet fully understands.

Speaking

A sought-after speaker, Fr. Brendan leads parish missions and clergy retreats nationwide on topics including Stewardship, From Gratitude to Joy, Atomic Habits of Prayer, Forgiveness, Parish Leadership, and Death and Dying: How to Live and Die Well.

Writing

He is the author of Weaving the Divine Thread and has completed two forthcoming works waiting to be published: The Soul of AI: A Priest, an Algorithm, and the Search for Wisdom and From Here to Eternity: How to Live and Die Well.

He lives in Los Altos, California, where he continues to write, preach, and guide communities toward gratitude, belonging, and joy.