A longtime Roman Catholic priest in Alabama has voluntarily left the priesthood after a woman accused his superiors of providing him with financial support in exchange for a “personal friend” he began having sex with when he was 17.
Robert Sullivan’s self-imposed removal from the priesthood – known as laicization – was announced in a public statement by Birmingham, Alabama, Bishop Steven Raica on Wednesday, the day before the US holiday of Thanksgiving.
The woman who accused Sullivan, Heather Jones, filed her allegations in a formal written statement to the Diocese of Birmingham that she shared exclusively with the Guardian in August. Jones, now 33, also maintained that Sullivan paid her millions of dollars to keep quiet about the arrangement, backing her claims with financial and email records, including a copy of the legal agreement.
Raica’s letter states that a subsequent church investigation into “significant payments allegedly made by then-Father Sullivan … found no connection between the allegations and any diocesan, parish or school funds.”
“These four months since the allegations emerged have been challenging in the life of our local church,” Raica’s letter added. “I am grateful for the patience and resilience of everyone directly or indirectly affected by this matter.”
Sullivan, 61, said members of the clergy chose to resign and vowed to teach that sex outside of marriage is sinful. Furthermore, people under the age of 18 are classified as minors — and sexual contact with them is considered sacrilegious — under policies adopted by the U.S. Catholic bishops in the early 2000s amid the global church’s decades-old priest abuse scandal.
However, there is no indication that Sullivan received scrutiny from the general authorities. The legal age of sexual consent in Alabama is 16. And law enforcement investigators are reluctant to prosecute religious clergy in some cases for allegedly having inappropriate sex with minors under the legal age of consent.
Alabama is also not among the US states with a law that says a power imbalance makes it impossible to have consensual sex between clergy and legal adults under the spiritual guidance of clergy there.
In a statement to Sullivan’s superiors and an interview with the Guardian, Jones said she grew up in foster care after being removed from her mother’s custody “due to severe neglect.” She wrote that she lacked reliable “adult support” in her formative years and so tried to make ends meet by working as a dancer in an “adult establishment” outside Birmingham.
Jones said she was 17 when she met Sullivan at the establishment, where she managed to get a job despite being under the applicable age limit. Sullivan was a regular patron, making it a point to tip her off during her shift and quickly offered to “help change. [her] Life” if she called him on the phone number he slipped her, she wrote.
Sullivan then offered to “form a continuing relationship involving financial support in return for personal association,” Jones wrote. Jones said Sullivan went to at least six different Alabama cities to shop, eat, drink and engage in sex in her hotel room — starting when she was 17 and over the course of several years.
He was said to have initially presented himself as a physician, although Jones later learned that he was a priest.
“At the time, I was a minor, with no experience navigating adult relationships, and no understanding of how power and influence could be used to manipulate a vulnerable person,” Jones wrote in her complaint. “I was hesitant but finally agreed due to her persistence and my desperate situation.”
Jones said she struggled with depression, addiction and emotional instability during her arrangement with Sullivan. She said she eventually spoke out against him because Sullivan was working closely with families and their children as the otherwise popular pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Homewood, Alabama, leaving her concerned that “others may fall prey to the same kind of manipulation and exploitation”.
Additionally, in 2020, Raica appointed Sullivan to serve as a vicar general of the Diocese of Birmingham, meaning he held a high-level administrative position.
Sullivan said at the Aug. 3 mass at Our Lady of Sorrows that he was taking a “personal leave of absence.” He did not provide a reason, but Jones had already filed a complaint against him with the diocese by then.
On August 13, the same day the Guardian reported Jones’ story, Raica issued a letter to congregants in his diocese about the allegations against Sullivan and the reason for his leave. The letter also said the diocese had referred Jones’ allegations to a Vatican agency that investigates cases of priest abuse.
Sullivan later asked Pope Leo XIV to “absolve him of all obligations” to the priesthood, Raica’s statement Wednesday said. The pontiff accepted the request on Monday, Raica’s missive said.
Jones did not immediately comment on Sullivan’s lynching.
Sullivan was ordained a priest in 1993, according to a previous Our Lady of Sorrows social media post.
