FATHER JON CHALMERS
Pastor
Fr. Jon Chalmers is Pastor of Prince of Peace Catholic Church and President of John Carroll Catholic High School.
Father Chalmers served as associate pastor at Prince of Peace from July 2021 through July 2022 and was named pastor by Bishop Steven Raica effective July 2022. Prior to his time at Prince of Peace, he was pastor of Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Gate City where he served for the prior four years.
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Father Jon grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, finished high school in New Jersey, and started college in Chicago. A series of wildly improbable events brought
him to Alabama for what he thought would be a brief visit. Now almost thirty years later, he has found a welcoming home and several vocations in Alabama.
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Father Jon finished his undergraduate degree at the University of Alabama and
with the university for 12 years. In his last role there, he served as the Director of the Program for Rural Services and Research working with communities throughout Alabama in public education, economic development, arts, and community health.
He is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education and served as president of Holy Family Cristo Rey Catholic High School from 2015 until 2021 and worked in Catholic healthcare in the areas of mission leadership, formation, spiritual care, and bioethics. He is a 2020 graduate of Leadership Birmingham.
Formerly an Episcopal priest, Father Jon received a dispensation from the obligation of celibacy from Pope Benedict XVI and was ordained a Catholic priest in 2012. As such, he is the only married priest in the Diocese of Birmingham. His wife Margaret is a civil and canon lawyer who is Moderator of the Diocesan Tribunal, and they have two teenage sons, David and Thomas.
Father Jon has a passion for old roads, old houses, local history, and wilderness trails with particular interests in how the past informs the future, the conversation between nature and culture, and redemptive responses to social challenges.