I was born in El Salvador in 1968. I am the youngest of 4, having two brothers and one sister. My parents live in Santa Rosa, my oldest brother lives in Petaluma, my older sister lives in Lakeport and I have one brother in Heaven as of April of this year. In 1971, my mother immigrated to San Francisco, where she had relatives, to establish a place for us. A year later we joined my mother in San Francisco. I can trace my bad memory to that very day to when I got off the plane at SFO. This lady (my mother) came up to me hugging and kissing me, and I, the four year old toddler who hadn’t seen his mother in a year, asked her who she was. To this day, my mother never lets me forget that moment. I grew up in the southern Mission district of San Francisco and when I was 10 we moved to Daly City. I attended Jefferson High School in Daly City, but don’t look up my school record because I was a troublemaker back then. I am not kidding. I dropped out of high school during my junior year with a certificate of proficiency. Since I grew up in tough neighborhoods and went to a tough high school, I sometimes refer to myself as the “priest from the hood.” That leads to another one of my faults: you can take the boy out of the ghetto, but you can’t take the ghetto out of the boy. When I was 18, because of a tragedy in my family involving drugs, violence and one of my brothers, we moved to Petaluma. I lasted about 9 months and moved back to San Francisco because I was a city boy back then. My brother eventually got help and spent a year in a psychiatric hospital and moved back with our family.

When I was a teenager I remember I wanted to be either an actor/comedian or a police officer. I was in every play my high school put on and pursued acting after high school, but I chose to join the workforce instead. When I was 22 I moved back to Petaluma because I missed my family and realized that I was turning into a country boy. Shortly after moving back to Petaluma I began going to Church, after being away from it for about 7 years. Going to Mass turned out to be a big conversion experience for me and I became really curious about God and His Church. I had a lot of faith questions and doubts so I began asking my parents and different priests so I could learn more about our beliefs. The more I learned about God and His Church the more I fell in love with both. It brought back fond memories of a priest from El Salvador, Fr. Emiliano Caballero, who would visit us regularly and how I really admired him since I was 10 years old. I became very active in my parish of St. Vincent de Paul in Petaluma. I was part of the Jóvenes (youth/young adult) program. I later became an altar server (at age 22), a lector and minister of Communion. When I was 24 I felt that God was calling me to serve as a priest because of how at peace I felt in the Church and ministry and the good role models I had that were priests.

I applied for the Diocese of Santa Rosa and began my studies at Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon in the fall of 1993. I received a BA in Liberal Arts and then left the Seminary in 1996 because I thought the priesthood wasn’t for me. Through prayer and spiritual direction I saw that God was still calling me to be a priest so I rejoined the Diocese of Santa Rosa and attended St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, CA in the fall of 1997. I graduated from St. Patrick’s in 2002 with 3 degrees: an STB (a pontifical degree that stands for Bachelors in Sacred Theology), a Masters in Divinity and a Master of Arts in Theology. My 4 degrees are big highlights for me being that I am a high school dropout.

I am fluently bilingual in English and Spanish. I have a wonderful dog named Homer. He is a Border collie mix that I rescued from the shelter in Ukiah 2 years ago. I enjoy playing golf, movies, sports and good food. My favorite teams are the San Francisco Giants and the San Francisco 49ers.

Since my parents were also very active in the Church my father later joined the permanent diaconate program in the diocese and was ordained in 2000. He served as a permanent deacon at St. Vincent’s in Petaluma until 2007 when he had to retire because he suffers from Alzheimer’s and his condition was getting worse. Recently, my dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer but since he is 83 years old it shouldn’t be a big problem. However, please keep him and my mother, his primary caregiver, in your prayers.

I was ordained on July 6, 2002 at St. Eugene’s Cathedral by Bishop Daniel Walsh. From August of 2002 to December of 2003 I was the associate pastor at St. John the Baptist in Napa. From December 2003 to June of 2007 I was the associate pastor of St. John the Baptist in Healdsburg. I transferred to St. Mary of the Angels in Ukiah in July of 2007 as the associate pastor. I was appointed as pastor in the summer of 2008. Now, the Holy Spirit is leading me to be the Pastor of St. Sebastian’s Catholic Church in Sebastopol.

Fr. Raul was formally installed as St. Sebastian's Pastor in November 27, 2011 by Bishop Walsh.