BIRMINGHAM (AL)
Birmingham News - AL.com [Birmingham AL]
August 13, 2025
By Greg Garrison
[See also the letter by Bishop Steven Raica.]
Bishop Steven Raica, head of the Catholic Diocese of Birmingham, today released a letter to the diocese revealing that a priest is being investigated for a relationship with a woman alleged to have begun when she was 17.
Robert Sullivan, 61, announced Aug. 2 that he was taking personal leave from his duties as pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Homewood beginning Aug. 4, Raica said. Sullivan also served as vicar general of the diocese, Raica said.
Raica said the victim assistance coordinator for the diocese received the allegation in July and the case is being referred to the Vatican for investigation and to the Alabama Department of Human Resources, since the woman reporting the allegation said she was a minor when the relationship began.
“While the Alabama Department of Human Resources determined that the allegations did not match the requirements for opening an investigation, a diocese investigation was initiated, again, according to Church law and our diocesan policies and guidelines,” Raica wrote. “Our diocesan Victim Assistance Coordinator has continued to be in contact with the woman who brought forth the allegations and has provided appropriate support.”
The allegations are also being reported to the Vatican. “Church law states that any allegation that may have involved a relationship between a person under the age of 18 and a member of the clergy must be reported to the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican,” Raica wrote. “That report is being developed now for submission to the Dicastery for its review and consideration.”
The woman making the allegations also shared them with The Guardian, a British newspaper, which has published a story on the allegations.
The Guardian said Heather Jones, 33, says she met Sullivan in 2009 when she was 17, dancing at a strip club where Sullivan was a patron. He offered her money to begin a sexual relationship and offered to pay her $273,000 to sign a legal non-disclosure document.
Jones, who agreed to let the Guardian go public with her identity, shared an unsigned copy of the non-disclosure agreement with the Guardian. She also provided a copy of a March 27 message from Sullivan’s Our Lady of Sorrows email address, which had the sentence: “Someone will be calling you to sign the NDA.”
The Guardian said she shared bank records that show four days after that email, Jones received a wire transfer of $136,500 from an account under the name of the attorney’s law office. She received another $136,500 wire transfer from the same law office account a day later, the bank records indicated.
The Guardian also reported that she shared records of more than 125 different transactions from July 18, 2024 to March 26 this year, showing a Venmo account under Sullivan’s name paid nearly $120,000 to Jones.
Jones told the Guardian she went public with allegations because Sullivan had continued working closely with families and their children as the pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows church in Homewood. “Others may be vulnerable to the same type of manipulation and exploitation,” she told the Guardian.
The Guardian said Jones gave permission to be publicly identified by name because she hoped it would boost the credibility of her account.
Donald Carson, spokesman for the Diocese of Birmingham, said Sullivan would be prohibited from public ministry during the investigation.
Jones, in her statement to the diocese and to the Guardian, said she grew up in foster care after being removed from her mother’s custody “due to severe neglect.”
She wrote that she lacked “consistent adult support” during her upbringing, leaving her ill-equipped to maintain employment or pursue a formal education – so she tried to make ends meet by working as a dancer at an “adult establishment” in the Birmingham area.
Jones wrote that Sullivan was a regular patron, tipped her during her shifts and offered to help change her life if she called him on a phone number he gave her.
Sullivan proposed “to form an ongoing relationship that would include financial support in exchange for private companionship,” Jones wrote, telling the Guardian that included sex.
She said Sullivan took her shopping, dining, drinking and to hotel rooms in at least six different Alabama cities in part to engage in sex, beginning when she was 17 and over the course of several years.
Jones wrote that she “was a minor with no experience navigating adult relationships” when she met Sullivan. “I was hesitant but ultimately agreed due to his persistence and the state [of mind] I was in,” she wrote.
Jones said Sullivan bought her a phone that he used to contact her.
He at first told her he was a doctor, but she later learned he was a priest and had a brother who was a doctor.
She wrote that she had attended church services throughout her youth and had difficulty reconciling “his public role and private behavior.”
She wrote that Sullivan paid for her to attend a rehabilitation program after she experienced depression, emotional instability and addiction during their arrangement.
Jones said she did not know whether the payments to her came out of his personal finances or not. She accepted the Venmo payments to cover her living expenses. She said Sullivan said he was happy to give her money because he loved her and so did Jesus Christ.
Jones wrote that she suggested revising the non-disclosure agreement and asked for $100,000 more because the agreement “heavily favored his interests and offered no meaningful protection, healing or justice,” and she began to see the relationship as “exploitative and predatory.”
She said she did not hear back from Sullivan and his attorney on that suggestion.
She said she gave her statement to the diocese shortly after writing it on July 23. Jones said she could provide phone records, pictures and other corroborating evidence to church investigators.
“Please continue to remember me in your prayers – as I will do the same for you,” Sullivan told the church after announcing his personal leave. On Aug. 10, Vicar General Kevin Bazzel told the church he had been appointed temporary administrator of Our Lady of Sorrows Church.
Sullivan has been a priest for more than 32 years and was formerly president of John Carroll High School for six years.
On April 18, Sullivan helped lead a Good Friday procession for the Homewood community starting at Homewood Park.
The Guardian noted that in 2020, Sullivan appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America” show, discussing his recovery from COVID-19 with help from his brother, an infectious diseases doctor.
Jones told the Guardian she recently began law school and did not abide by the terms of the non-disclosure statement with Sullivan because she believed it would not hold up in court.
“Behind closed doors, his behavior toward me was not in alignment with the values he teaches,” Jones wrote.
“Father Sullivan was granted a leave of absence and is currently removed from all priestly service pending the outcome of the investigation,” Raica wrote to the diocese. “We do not know the timeframe for completion of the work of the Dicastery in Rome nor of that which will be further required within our diocese.”
Raica noted that “anyone accused in the Church possesses a presumption of innocence until proven otherwise, equivalent to the right granted in civil law. In sharing this with you now, I ask your continued prayers for all involved, for each other, and all people of our diocese. I also stress the need for absolute adherence to our policies and guidelines for Youth Protection and the reporting of allegations to our Victims Assistance Coordinator.”