Fr. John was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 29, 1958 to John J. Forbes, Jr. and Joan White Forbes.  He is the oldest of five children.  He lived in Bowie, Maryland and attended St. Pius X School.  He moved with his family to North Carolina on February 29, 1972.  He graduated from eighth grade at St. Pius X School and Our Lady of Lourdes School in June of 1972.  His freshman class reopened Cardinal Gibbons High School, and he graduated Salutatorian for the Class of 1976.

In May of 1980, John graduated cum laude from North Carolina State University in Raleigh with a BA in Psychology.  He attended the University of Notre Dame in Indiana for two years of graduate theology studies as a seminarian for the Diocese of Raleigh.  He then spent one year as a candidate for the Eastern Province of the Holy Cross Fathers.  He was assigned to Holy Cross Parish in South Easton, Massachusetts.  He attended classes at Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In 1983, John returned to Raleigh and worked at the D.H. Hill Library at North Carolina State University. In 1984, he was hired as the first full-time Director of Religious Education at Our Lady of Lourdes.  After two years at OLL, John enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a MS in Information and Library Science.  During this time, he resided at St. Joseph Parish in Raleigh and was their Director of Religious Education.  In 1988, John went to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, as a seminarian for the Diocese of Raleigh.  He was ordained a deacon at Sacred Heart Cathedral and a priest at Our Lady of Lourdes in 1991.   His first assignment as a priest was to St. Mary Parish in Wilmington, followed by a short time at Christ the King in Riegelwood and Our Lady of the Snows in Elizabethtown.  He was assigned to Sacred Heart Cathedral for six months and then to Immaculate Conception in Durham as the parochial vicar and chaplain to the Duke University Medical Center and the VA Hospital.

In July of 1996, Fr. John was named pastor of St. Stephen the First Martyr in Sanford.  During his ten-year pastorate, St. Stephen Church grew rapidly and relocated to a new campus.  In August of 2005, Fr. John was named the pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes in Raleigh.  During this eleven-year pastorate the gathering space at the church was expanded and the St. Bernadette Center completed. In June of 2017, Fr. John was appointed administrator of Sacred Heart Parish in Pinehurst. He was named pastor of the parish in June of 2018.

Fr. John's mother, Joan, lives in Greystone in Raleigh, and is a parishioner of St. Raphael the Archangel Church.  His father, Jack, died in July of 2018.  His brother, Steve, lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Steve has three children, Steve (Sarah), Brad, and Christie and two grandchildren, Anna and Mattie. Fr. John's brother, Tom, lives in New Hill, NC. He has four children, Tom, Lauren (Cormac), Amelia (Brad) and Emily, and two grandchildren Desmond and Meara.  Fr. John's sister, Mary, is an internal medicine doctor in private practice.  She lives in North Hills in Raleigh.  Fr. John's brother, Bob, and wife, Vanessa, live in Nashville, Tennessee.  They have three children Sean, Alex, and Catherine.