Fr. Roman became pastor of Divine Savior in July of 2004. He finds himself most at home presiding at Masses and preaching. It is easily noticeable that he has a special place in his heart for children. He also enjoys the adventure of the on-going development of a Catholic Community. Prior to coming to Divine Savior, Fr. Roman served as pastor of St. Joseph’s Church in Huntsville, AL. Despite it being a relatively small parish, a great accomplishment on the part of the parishioners was the construction of a 13,000 square foot multi-purpose building which was paid off in two years after construction was completed.
Between 1985 and 1997, Fr. Roman exercised his ministry as pastor for the first time at Queen of Peace Parish in Mesa, AZ. Those twelve years involved the pasturing of a multi-cultural parish made up of a wide variety of English speaking people, an equal number of people from Mexico, as well as sizeable groups of indigenous Guatemalans and people born in Peru as well as other countries in Central and South America, and several countries in Europe and Asia. The parish had a parochial school as well as some 700 young folks involved in religious education. Under his watch, the parish renovated every parish building, the staff doubled in size to meet the needs of two language groups and the collections more than doubled.
For seven years prior to this Fr. Roman was an associate pastor at St. Leander Church in San Leandro, CA. After getting an M.A. in Clinical Psychology he helped found a parish Counseling Service while accruing hours toward his Marriage, Family and Child Counseling License.
Before this, Fr. Roman also spent six years teaching high school. This ministry proceeded and followed his obtaining a Master’s Degree in Theology from the Franciscan School of Theology, Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA, after which he was ordained on August 22, 1974.
Fr. Roman’s formative years were spent on a dairy farm in North Eastern Wisconsin.