Clergy & Staff

We can't wait to meet you!

Rector

The Rev. Dr. Mauricio J. Wilson

The son of the Bishop of Costa Rica, the Rev. Dr. Mauricio Wilson started preaching at age 17, and was youth director of the Diocese of Costa Rica for 15 years. A business major at the University of Costa Rica, he was a registered CPA in his home country, eventually working as an auditor for Coopers Lybrand Accounting, the Coca Cola Co. and for a private bank. “My first calling was always to the priesthood,” said Fr. Wilson, who is bilingual in English and Spanish. “Accounting was my backup plan.”

Fr. Wilson, who also answers to Mauricio, is a member of the Executive Council of the Diocese of California and serves on its program and budget committee. He is co-chair of the Diocesan Committee on Nominations. As the rector of St. Paul’s, he holds seats on the Board of Clausen House in Oakland and St Paul’s Episcopal School. His hobbies include cooking, collecting wines and driving different kinds of vehicles. He’s looking forward to learning to drive an 18-wheeler and a race car someday. His favorite book is Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons and he figures he’s seen his favorite movie, The Matrix, 150 times.

Fr. Wilson became rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in 2009.

Associate Priest
SPES Chaplain

The Rev. Annie Pierpoint Mertz

Rev. Annie Pierpoint Mertz is an Oakland native, as well as a St. Paul’s School alum!

After St. Paul’s, Annie went on to Bishop O’Dowd High School and the University of California, Davis. After graduating college, she returned to Oakland and spent 2 years working in Environmental Science Education while volunteering with the youth group at her childhood church, St. John’s Episcopal in Oakland.

Annie soon discovered that her work with youth was much more than a hobby, and wondered if she was called to ordained ministry. She accepted the position of Church School coordinator at St. John’s.

In time, with encouragement from family, friends, and colleagues, Annie officially began her journey towards priesthood. She earned her M.Div. in 2014, and was ordained on December 6th, 2014 at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

Rev. Annie shares her home with her husband, Andrew Mertz, a Unitarian Universalist minister, focused on young adult ministry; and their new son Andrew, Jr.

In her spare time, she enjoys reading, writing, and doting on their adopted dog Boudreaux.

Archdeacon
Dir. Sr. Resources

The Venerable Carol Bolton

The Rev. Carol Bolton brings a long history of ministry to those in need that predates her ordination in 2005. She's been a social services coordinator at the Oak Center Towers affordable senior housing complex; worked for the Boys & Girls Club of Oakland for more than 20 years, and was the Day Labor Coordinator and Diamond Youth Shelter Coordinator at the Larkin Street Youth Center.

She says she's glad that her day job in the Senior Resources program, where she started in 2009, overlaps so well with her ministry. Her work helps seniors with basic emergency needs, food from the weekly produce market in St. Paul’s Parish Hall, and housing assistance.  She's the junior warden of the Sacred Space Oakland, a board member on St. Mary’s Center and Secretary, Aging Service of California, Season of Sharing Alameda County, Summit Health Ministry, and Area Agency on Aging Round Table.

Rev. Bolton, was born and raised a Baptist in Oakland, and joined the Episcopal Church when she married her husband, Howard, in 1980. She has three adult children and a grandson.

Assisting Priest

The Rev. Anne Jensen

A recently retired priest, the Rev. Anne Jensen returned to St. Paul’s as an assisting priest in 2015.  She served as Interim Rector at St. Paul’s from 2006-2008 and then served two other interim periods before retiring.

Anne grew up in central Washington, a beautiful and rich agricultural area. She earned a BA in history and an MA in counseling at Stanford. While living in Minneapolis, Anne became the director of Christian Education for the Cathedral of St. Mark. During this time she realized a call to ordained ministry.  She was eventually able to transfer to Yale Divinity School, from which she graduated in 1988.  She was ordained priest the following year and served a variety of churches there—urban, suburban, and country.

Anne’s ministry in California has focused on helping churches in time of transition as they prepare to call a new rector. 

Anne is also an experienced spiritual director and has worked with seminarians both at Yale and at Church Divinity School of the Pacific. In addition to assisting in worship and preaching, she serves in the areas of adult faith formation, incorporation of new members and pastoral care. 

She lives in Oakland with her husband Doug.

Assisting Priest

The Rev. Christian Harding

Rev. Christian Harding had a long career in the ministry in his native Liberia, surviving the African nation’s civil war, before retiring to California and joining St. Paul’s as assisting clergy in 2004.

He is often the celebrant at the 8 a.m. Sunday service. Ordained in Liberia in 1981, Father Christian served in a number of capacities, at one time supervising 125 congregations and 110 priests. He was rector at St. Paul’s church in Liberia and served as a curate at Trinity Cathedral in Monrovia.  He was a teacher and principal at an Episcopal school for 21 years before his ordination. During the war, which started in 1998, his wife and six children left the country in search of safety.

Born on Christmas Day in 1933, he was one of 12 children in what he describes as a strict family. He allows that he’s had to make adjustments to the American church. "When I was preaching, I’d preach for 40 to 45 minutes. Here, you sometimes have to quell the spirit, and not go over 15 minutes.”

Now a widower, his hobbies include reading, listening to classical music and playing piano to amuse himself. He has many grandchildren, mostly on the East Coast, and one great-grandchild in Sacramento.

”I like quietness,” he says. ”I run from rowdy people.”

Music Director Organist

Mr. Christopher Kula

Bio coming soon!