PASTOR & RECTOR — Father Bryan W. Jerabek, J.C.L.
Father Jerabek became Pastor & Rector of the Cathedral of Saint Paul on July 1, 2016 and also currently serves as Chaplain for BHM Catholic Campus Ministry and St. Stephen’s Chapel, Chancellor of the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama, Judicial Vicar of the Diocese, and a Papal Missionary of Mercy.
 
He originally hails from Portsmouth, New Hampshire and first moved to Birmingham in 1999 to work at a local bank. While in Birmingham he began to practice his baptismal faith and discern a call to the priesthood. After leaving the corporate world to complete university studies, he was accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of Birmingham by Bishop David E. Foley, D.D., attending Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Bishop Foley ordained him a transitional deacon on March 3, 2007 at Immaculate Conception Church of Corpus Christi Parish in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
 
On June 7, 2008 he was ordained a priest at the Cathedral of Saint Paul by Bishop Robert J. Baker, S.T.D. Father Jerabek’s first assignment was at Holy Spirit Parish in Huntsville, Alabama, where he was Parochial Vicar, with particular responsibility for the parish’s large Hispanic community. During his first year he also covered English and Spanish Masses once a month at Our Lady of the Valley in Fort Payne, which at that time did not have its own pastor. He was also assigned as a Teacher, Associate Chaplain, and then Chaplain of the then-Catholic High School (now St. John Paul II Catholic High School) in Huntsville.
 
After three years in Huntsville, Bishop Baker sent Father Jerabek to Rome to study Canon Law at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross (“Santa Croce”). Father completed his degree (ecclesiastical licentiate) in the Summer of 2014 and returned to be Administrator, later Pastor, of St. Barnabas and Holy Rosary parishes in Birmingham, with care also for the Hispanic community at Our Lady of Lourdes Parish.
 
In February 2016 Father Jerabek was named Chancellor of the Diocese of Birmingham, a position he continues to hold.
 
Bishop Robert J. Baker tasked Father with being Chairman of the recent Diocesan Eucharistic Congress, June 28-29, 2019, as well as with the Installation of the new Bishop, the Most Reverend Steven J. Raica, June 22-23, 2020.
 
Father Jerabek was named a Papal Missionary of Mercy by His Holiness Pope Francis in November 2020, a position he continues to hold. In this capacity, he has a special mandate from the Holy Father to hear confessions and preach on mercy; moreover, he has the faculty to hear confessions anywhere in the world and to remit the censures associated with certain ecclesiastical crimes that are otherwise normally reserved to the Holy See.
 
On July 1, 2021, Bishop Steven J. Raica appointed Father Jerabek as Judicial Vicar of the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama. The Judicial Vicar acts in the Bishop’s name to serve the ministry of justice in the diocese – principally, in the area of the Marriage Tribunal, but in other judicial processes as well, as determined by Canon Law. On July 6, 2021, Father Jerabek was named Chaplain for Birmingham-area university students by Bishop Steven J. Raica. Chaplaincy activities for BHM Catholic Campus Ministry take place primarily at St. Stephen’s Chapel but also on the campuses.
 
Father is a Knight Commander of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. He is also a Fourth-Degree Knight of Columbus. He enjoys traveling, sacred art and music, and visiting with his nieces and nephews. He speaks English, Spanish, and Italian. He may be contacted at fatherjerabek@stpaulsbhm.org.
 
  PAROCHIAL VICAR (ASSOCIATE PASTOR) — Father J. Michael Adams
Father Adams was born in Tampa, Florida, and received his first Holy Communion and Confirmation at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic School, where he attended grades 1-6 before moving across Tampa Bay to the city of Largo. He graduated from Largo High School in 1972.
 
Under the influence of Our Lady, Father Adams began to feel a keen attraction to the priesthood as a young man, while taking premedical courses at St. Petersburg Junior College in the Pinellas County area where he grew up. After much prayer and counsel, he decided to forego his secular studies to prepare for the priesthood. A special opportunity opened for him to go to Italy to pursue his seminary and ecclesiastical studies for the priesthood. He studied both philosophy and theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome, Italy and was ordained a priest in Civitavecchia, Italy, by Bishop Girolamo Grillo on May 25, 1985.
 
He had numerous blessings from his parochial and diocesan assignments over the years in Italy, far too many to list. His last one took place in the Diocese of Trani-Barletta-Bisceglie where he was assistant rector to Our Lady of Grace Sanctuary in Corato (Bari), the Diocesan Retreat Center.
 
With the desire to transfer from Southern Italy to the Birmingham Diocese, on Ash Wednesday 2009, he began the transfer process with his first assignment at St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Hoover. The process of changing dioceses can take many years to complete, and must include parochial assignments in at least two parishes. His second assignment was at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church in Homewood.
 
On May 24, 2012, Father Adams was incardinated as a priest of the Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama.
 
In July of 2012, he began his third assignment as Administrator of St. Stephen the Martyr Catholic Chapel, and was Campus Minister of UAB, Samford University, and Birmingham-Southern College. He was then transferred to his fourth assignment in November 2014 as the Pastor of Our Lady of the Shoals Catholic Church in Tuscumbia, Alabama. On February 18, 2022, he was transferred to the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Birmingham to serve as Parochial Vicar (Associate Pastor). Father Adams speaks English, Italian, and Spanish, and may be contacted at fatheradams@stpaulsbhm.org.
 
  PRIEST-IN-RESIDENCE — Father Charles Merrill
Father Charles Merrill was born in Kansas in 1950, but remembers nothing about that state. He was raised in Natchitoches, Louisiana. Both of his parents were Southern Baptists from the Mississippi Delta.
 
He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1972, and that summer was received into the Catholic Church. He had begun his conversion during a year of study at the University of Kiel in Germany.
 
He spent a year in Barcelona on a Fulbright Scholarship, and received a Ph.D. from Duke University in 1978, with a dissertation on medieval Catalan literature.
 
From 1978-2001 he taught in the language department of Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmitsburg, Maryland. From 2001 until 2009 he taught Spanish and Latin at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, in the summers leading groups of seminarians to a Spanish and cultural immersion program in Querétaro, Mexico.
 
Father Merrill authored a book on the Catalan origins of Christopher Columbus, and has also published a translation into Spanish of Germain Grisez’s Fulfillment in Christ.
 
In the autumn of 2009 he was sent by Bishop Robert J, Baker to the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, from which he graduated in 2013. In June of that year he was ordained priest at the Cathedral of Saint Paul by Bishop Baker. He was assigned as parochial vicar to Annunciation of the Lord Catholic Church in Decatur, and after two years, to Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Huntsville. In 2018, he returned to Annunciation of the Lord as pastor. After seven years, his declining health moved him to seek retirement, and he gratefully took up residence at the Cathedral of Saint Paul on July 1, 2025.
 
Father Merrill speaks English, Spanish, Catalan, German, Dutch, and Italian. He has never really learned to use a smartphone. He has two children, Susanna and Jack. He may be contacted at charlesramon.merrill@gmail.com.