He worked for the University of Alabama health system in its Program for Rural Services and Research after graduation, and apparently as an outcome of this work, he went to Harvard for a Master's in Education from 1997-98. (This may have been largely distance learning, and he continued in his university job during this time.) I would say that in the academic world, Education degrees are looked down on, even those from the Ivy League. However, by 2004, in his early 30s, Chalmers was apparently looking for a completely different career, and he decided to become an Episcopal priest and go to Yale Divinity.
An observation I've often seen is that the Episcopsl priesthood is, for many, a second or third attempt at a career. What in the Catholic Church is called a "delayed vocation" is much more unusual there. The opinions I see suggest that the university system we have produces people without much direction, and they tend not to work out at one career or another, so they keep trying new ones, especially ones that are prestigious and undemanding, like the Episcopal priesthood. That's just a piece I'm bringing to the puzzle here.
But here's another piece. While you can simply decide to go to education school, to go to an Episcopalian seminary, you also need a letter of recommendation from your bishop. Here's where I think other pieces of the puzzle may fit. As my regular correspondent puts it,
Msgr Steenson seemed to get it into his head that certain people would be a "catch" for the OCSP and then get them ordained whether or not he had any actual role for them. As I'm sure I've mentioned I saw Fr Chalmers given as a reference on the website of the company that set up the OCSP website, so clearly he was entrusted with this task in the early days, and no doubt other aspects of the organisational set-up. Just as Fr Sellers was made Director of Communications, and Msgr Gipson CFO and Fr Wolfe Director of Child and Youth Protection. All completely incompetent, at least in these roles.My impression is that Fr Gipson, who was Dean of the Birmingham TEC cathedral from 1982-94, must have been a patron of young Mr Chalmers, and he probably had some role in eventually getting him a letter from the Bishop of Alabama, not just to any seminary, but to Yale Divinity. This would certainly have helped him in reinventing his career.
However, what we see on his graduation from seminary is that his first job was Chaplain and Interim Rector at the University of Alabama Episcopalian chapel from 2007-8. An Episcopalian priest is normally ordained only after he's been hired by his first parish -- given the job market, it's by no means unusual for seminary graduates not to get calls, or job offers, and thus not to be ordained as young associates. But sometimes a bishop will ordain a few who don't have jobs in parishes and give them temporary jobs that are meant to last about a year, like "bishop's chaplain" (a fancy word for driver) or, in Chalmers's case, an "interim".
An "interim" is a priest-in-charge at a parish, assigned by the bishop, who serves the parish following a rector's resignation. This job is expected to last only until a new rector is hired by the vestry, and there is a contractual understanding that an interim is not eligible to become the parish's rector -- it's a purely temporary assignment, often with responsibilities limited to saying mass, all other matters handled by the wardens and vestry. Not necessarily the first assignment you'd expect for a Yale Divinity alum, but the ones I saw who passed through TEC parishes when I was an Episcopalian tended to be attractive but without much substance anyhow.
Certainly he didn't seem to have much future in the Diocese of Alabama, since his next job was as an associate at Christ Episcopal in Greenville, SC from 2009-12. It sounds as though by that time, Fr Gipson's influence was on the wane -- apparently he could get him nothing in TEC in Houston.
His move from Episcopalian to Catholic in Greenville, however, was sudden. As of January 7 2012, he was still an Episcopalian associate at Christ Church Greenville presiding at a funeral. By June 3, he was ordained a Catholic priest, either the first or second to be ordained in the OCSP. At the same time, press releases described him as a "hospital executive", although various references indicate he was some type of coordinator for chaplain services at St. Francis Hospital in Greenville, SC.
At the same time, Fr Chalmers started a "gathered group" called St Anselm's in Greenville. This was almost certainly the first instance of what became the actual ordinariate pattern, rather than the one anticipated in Anglicanorum coetibus: the new ordinariate priest gets a make-work diocesan day job to support his family while struggling to attract members to a small group that will celebrate DW liturgy.
The best we can tell is that Fr Chalmers lasted three years in Greenville, when he was apparently able, either through his wife or some other contacts in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Birmingham, to return there with a job as President of Holy Family Cristo Rey Catholic High School, apparently falling back on his education degree from Harvard. In 2017, he also became Pastor of the Holy Rosary Church in Birmingham.
Despite his prestigious education, we're seeing a pretty standard pattern that's developed with ordinariate priests: marginal performers in Anglican denominations seeking last-ditch opportunities in the Catholic Church. They're unable to build ordinriate communities, which typically don't survive long after they leave them, and within a fairly short time, they must rely on diocesan jobs to support themselves and their families.
We'll take a look at the St Anselm Greenville group's history tomorrow.
