I noted here last year that three Birmingham-based bishoprics would be getting new shepherds in the coming year. Wednesday on the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, Pope Francis named the Most Reverend Steven J. Racia as the fifth bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama. He will be installed on Tuesday, June 23 at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Birmingham.

Four days later on June 27 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Mountain Brook, the Reverend Dr. Glenda Curry will be ordained bishop. She was elected on January 18 by the convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama and will serve as bishop coadjutor of the diocese until the Right Reverend Kee Sloan retires as bishop and she is invested as the twelfth bishop on January 9, 2021 at the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham.

Racia comes to Alabama from his native Michigan where he is bishop of Gaylord. Curry has had a long career in Alabama, most recently as rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Homewood. It is not yet known where the next bishop for the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church will come from.

He or she is due to be appointed by the Southeastern Jurisdiction Conference at its July 15-17 meeting at Lake Junaluska. Though, with the postponement of the denomination’s General Conference, which was to be held in May, due to COVID-19, it is possible that the dates of the jurisdictional conference may change.