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The longtime president of Mobile’s McGill-Toolen Catholic High School has announced his intention to retire at the end of the 2025-26 academic year. The Rev. W. Bry Shields has been president of the school since 1989, and for most of that time it was the only Catholic high school in southwest Alabama. St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope opened in 2016. McGill-Toolen remains the largest, with an enrollment of about 670 compared to the newer school’s student population of about 350. Shields announced his intention in a letter to the school community. In it, he said he had recently met with Archbishop Mark Rivituso and asked for permission to resign effective June 30, and the request was approved. “I hasten to add that I am not retiring from active ministry!” he wrote. “I am in good health and I have a strong desire to continue serving as a priest for the Archdiocese of Mobile.” Shield said he would continue to serve as pastor of St. Ignatius Parish. “I began teaching at McGill-Toolen in 1982, and was appointed as President in 1989 by Archbishop Lipscomb,” Shields wrote. “These 44 years have been filled with blessings to numerous to count, and I am grateful beyond words for the graces and friendships that have come to me. The leadership of the school under [Principal] Blake Stein is very strong, and morale among teachers and students has never been better. With a new strategic plan for improvements in every area of the school, and enthusiasm for the school’s mission on the part of parents and volunteers, the future looks very bright.” Shields’ tenure was not uneventful. The school made headlines in September 1993 when 60 junior and senior girls were sent home because their skirts were too short. (Most offenders wore skirts about four inches above the knee rather than two inches, according to a Press-Register report.) “I felt like it was incumbent upon me to enforce the school’s rules,” said Shields, who was serving as both president and principal at the time. “It’s a sign of respect for the school to wear the uniform properly.’” Two of the girls involved said Shields has pressured them not to appear on talk shows about the incident; Shields said he had urged them not to go and had warned them that if their appearances reflected badly on the school, that could constitute an offense resulting in suspension, probation or expulsion. Shields was an Episcopalian priest who was married and a father of five when he was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1984. In 1995 he and his wife of 18 years, obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Ruth Ann Shields, finalized a divorce. According to a Press-Register report at the time, that made him the first active Roman Catholic priest in the United States to be divorced. However, in 2000 the couple renewed their vows in a celebration at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. “The marriage was never annulled in the church,” said the Very Rev. Michael L. Farmer, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Mobile. “All of us should be quite happy that through prayer and through communication ... this issue has been resolved, and the family’s back together again in one household.” The Very Rev. G. Warren Wall, pastor of St. Ignatius Catholic Church, explained that the church did not consider this a remarriage: “It isn’t a second marriage. It is civilly, but sacramentally it’s the same marriage he entered into when he was in the Episcopal church.” McGill-Toolen expanded its facilities during Shields’ tenure, with notable projects including a $2.5 million project to expand the library and add a computer lab and an athletic complex in the mid-‘90s. A new Center for Science & Technology opened in 2009. In 2014 a capital campaign raised more than $9 million to fund a massive new student center including a dining hall and chapel as well as additional parking areas. McGill-Toolen celebrated its centennial in 1996, counting from the founding of McGill Institute in 1896. In 1972 the boys’ school merged with the Bishop Toolen school for Girls creating a unified coed school. In 2005, Shields and other members of his family were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator they were using in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. They were among at least 20 treated for carbon monoxide exposure at a local hospital. Shields and the school faced a challenge that made national headlines in 2023, when The Rev. Alex Crow, a Mobile priest who previously had worked at McGill-Toolen and ministered to students there, left the country with an 18-year-old woman who’d recently graduated from the school. The backlash included a petition calling for the removal of then-Archbishop Thomas Rodi, Shields and then-principal Michelle Haas. Crow was relieved of his duties by the archdiocese and formally removed from the priesthood by the Vatican. He and the young woman later married. In his letter, Shields said that the Archdiocese of Mobile would oversee the process to select a new president of the school. “I look forward to continuing to serve for the reminder of this school year, and to do whatever I can in the future to support the mission the Lord has entrusted to us to help our students grow in knowledge, faith, and love,” Shields wrote.
