Retired pastor from California joins diocese

Friday, Jul. 04, 2025

WEST VALLEY CITY — Father Ronald Cochran, a retired priest of the Diocese of San Diego, has moved to West Valley City, where he has been appointed parochial vicar of Saints Peter and Paul Parish. He also plans to help out in the diocese wherever he may be needed.

Fr. Cochran is no stranger to Utah. He has a son and a daughter, Kevin Cochran and Christine Row, and four grandchildren who live locally (a fifth grandchild lives in Bend, Ore.), and he has visited the Beehive State many times.

The path to the priesthood was a long and winding one for Fr. Cochran.

Born in Dayton, Ohio, Fr. Cochran was a cradle Catholic who grew up in a heavily Catholic neighborhood where his cousins’ families lived just a few blocks away. During primary school, he was an altar server. At that time that he knew he wanted to be a priest someday, he said. He even spent his freshman year in high school at a Marianist seminary, but his parents did not want him to become a priest.

“They fought it the whole way,” he said. “And they were miserable the whole time. Every time they came to visit, it was just a miserable hour and a half or so, and that’s why I dropped out at that point. But I promised myself I would go back, and that’s what I did.” 

Though that was his plan, he enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating from high school, attended Officer Candidate School and received a commission, then was as an infantry platoon leader in Vietnam for a year before returning to the United States. He served as a training officer in Training Command, Fort Ord, Calif. for two years, achieving the rank of captain before his discharge. 

After completing his military service, he enrolled in university under the G.I. Bill and received a double bachelor’s degree in business administration and urban studies from Wright State University, Fairborn, Ohio. 

During his freshman year he attended a Marianist seminary but “When it came time at the end of the year to do temporary vows, I just couldn’t do it,” he said. “I’ve not been a good decision-maker all my life. So, I ended up going back to Dayton.” 

Once back in his hometown, he reconnected with a girl he had known in high school, and they married.

“When I left the novitiate, I was very confused,” he said. “It was kind of like, ‘Well, the Lord doesn’t want me to be a priest, you know? What does he want?’ And the next option was marriage. And I know this doesn’t bode well for whether I knew what the heck I was doing, but I still had to ask myself, ‘How do I live the fullness of Christian life?’”

The marriage lasted seven years; in 1978 the couple obtained an annulment from the Tribunal of the Diocese of San Diego, because theirs had not been a sacramental marriage. Fr. Cochran remained an involved parent and with his ex-wife raised their two children to adulthood, but the annulment “freed us for remarriage and, for me, ordination,” he said.  

In his professional life, Fr. Cochran was a senior planner for the City of Dayton for five years. He followed that with a project manager position at Catholic Charities USA, Washington, D.C. In that job he worked for two years with parishes in eight states to help them identify, plan and implement projects oriented toward helping lower-income families stabilize their lives. During those years he also worked at a parish where the pastor encouraged him to think about the priesthood. 

“I thought it was crazy at the time, but they asked me to go to the diocese and talk to the spiritual director for the seminary,” he said.

At the time he was still married, though the couple wasn’t living together. He told the parish priest, “‘I’m not really available for priesthood, but I’m willing to be a deacon if you want.’”

The priest persisted, and began the annulment process. 

As these events unfolded Fr. Cochran decided to just trust God through the process. 

“That’s what I did as I trusted to see where this was going to lead,” he said. “I did not decide that I really was going to open myself to ordination until very late in the process.”

Eventually Fr. Cochran returned to the convictions of his youth and entered formation at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, Calif. At the age of 53 he was ordained a priest on June 1, 2001 by Bishop Robert Brom for the Diocese of San Diego. Following his ordination, he served as associate pastor of St. Patrick Parish in Carlsbad, Calif. before being assigned as pastor of St. Michael Parish in San Diego for four years. He then spent the following 15 years as pastor at The Church of St. Luke in El Cajon, Calif.

During these years Fr. Cochran started a blog that eventually became the website fatherfather.net, so named because after his ordination his son started calling him Father Father. 

“I originally did [the blog] to try to be helpful to people,” he said. “I take preaching very seriously. I try to preach to people who live life in the world and not try to make them theologians or knowledgeable about this and that. My whole thing is, I want them to have relationship with the Lord. I want them to understand that when we say the Mass [that] is the center of who we are as a people. It’s important to me that people understand that living their Christianity out is lived out in the normal everyday moments of their lives.”

He also wrote a book, The Catholic Mass, An Opportunity for Encounter, to help people understand the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Fr. Cochran’s unique life story prior to becoming a priest has only served to enrich his experience over the past 24 years, he said.

“Many people appreciate the fact that I’m not judgmental when it comes to their problems living life in the world,” he said. “I’m a listener, I’m an embracer, I’m a curator, and they appreciate that.”

A few years ago, Fr. Cochran was diagnosed with fibrillary glomerulonephritis, a rare kidney disease with an unknown origin. In 2021 he determined, with his bishop’s blessing, to retire.

“I could barely make it through a Mass at that point,” he said.

After his retirement he lived in Mexico for nearly four years but then returned to the U.S. for medical care. Earlier this year he underwent heart surgery, and “I have felt great ever since,” he said. 

In his retirement Fr. Cochran has continued to celebrate weekly Mass. He also writes a homily or a reflection every week and publishes it on his Facebook page and website. 

“That’s how I maintain my identity, I guess,” he said. “And so that’s one of the beauties of being a retired priest, is you can maintain your identity by helping out.”

At some point, Fr. Cochran plans to move to Sandy to live with his son and his family, but he hopes to continue to be able to serve the people of the Diocese of Salt Lake City as his health allows.