Robert Sullivan, 61, on ‘personal leave’ after Heather Jones, now 33, brought allegations, sexual in nature, to diocese
A Roman Catholic priest in Alabama is under investigation, church officials say – and he abruptly announced he is taking “personal leave” – after a woman alleged to his superiors that he traded financial support for “private companionship” including sex, beginning when she was 17.
The accuser, Heather Jones, has also alleged that the clergyman, Robert Sullivan, recently paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars to remain silent about it, a claim she supported with bank records, an email and a copy of a legal agreement.
Just let priests get married and fuck, holy shit. Raised Catholic, constantly unsurprised by all these stories. It really is an epidemic. I’m expecting the diocese and the Vatican organization that deals with sexual abuse to do nothing or even actively discredit her.
I guess for most of history they were allowed to have mistresses. An arrangement I’m sure was also rife with abuse.
The original idea as far as I understand it, was to prevent dynasties emerging within the church. Making the church a thing that “rose above nations”, not just another country with a pointy hat for a crown.
But yes, I agree. Let the priests fuck (consenting adults) already.
That’s also something you could prevent by not allowing children of clergy to become priests.
Come to think of it, that may be a good idea for politicians as well. Children of politicians often get internships and opportunities through their parents, which gives them a massive networking advantage if they eventually want to hold office themselves.
The original reason for it is not even valid anymore (church losing land due to the priests’ children inheriting it).
I’ve never heard that being a reason; I’ve always heard that they were following the single-minded devotion of John the Baptist and Jesus.
Basically nothing in the catholic church (and mostly christianity in general) is actually based in Faith. It is all about protecting the business/feudal powers of catholicism.
Basically everything is, at best, stolen from the religions they were trying to conquer (Think about why The Savior was apparently born just in time for Yule celebrations…) or were all about building up sales for businesses that catholicism had money in.
You think they’re not gonna take advantage of women and children if they’re allowed to marry? I doubt it, because the big issue is the power dynamic, not his inability to get married. If he wanted to fuck he can go ahead and find an escort or leave the church and get married.
The church attracts abusers and creeps, and many people who want to be celibate because they know they’re pedos. Letting them marry isn’t going to stop the church attracting abusers
Of course abuse is still going to happen, it happens outside of the priesthood too. Putting words in my mouth is just dumb.
There are tons of pedos who are/were married, this argument is completely idiotic. Positions of authority will always attract abusers, that doesn’t mean that having to be celibate and unmarried isn’t a large part of why priests molest others and then try to cover it up.
Where would a priest even get hundreds of thousands of dollars? I thought they had their basic needs paid for along with a modest stipend? Probably some kind of pension?
And the obvious answer is embezzling donations, but it can’t be so easy to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from an organization that has accountants without them noticing.
it can’t be so easy to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from an organization that has accountants without them noticing.
You’d be surprised. It happens all the time, in lots of organizations. Sometimes the accountants are in on it, sometimes (more often) they’re incompetent.
Yeah the last company I worked at the CFO embezzled like $300,000 in two years, and we weren’t big, maybe 30 employees.
That CFO had a “Greed is Good” quote on top of an American flag poster in his office.
And that was after a previous CFO had secretly signed the company up for a bunch of grants and then pocketed that money for himself, and nobody noticed until one day he showed up in like $110,000 Porsche and claimed it was a “rental.”
That company was (and probably still is since it looks like it hasn’t completely died yet) so corrupt, I’m glad I got out before it imploded
Selling information from the confessional, maybe?
Not a drag queen…
he traded financial support for “private companionship”
Uh… traded to whom? I feel like there are a few extra culprits involved in this.
she tried to make ends meet by working as a dancer at an “adult establishment” outside Birmingham.
Jones reported meeting Sullivan at that establishment when she was 17. He was a regular patron, tipped her during her shifts and soon offered to “help change [her] life” if she called him on his phone number, she wrote.
Sullivan proposed “to form an ongoing relationship that would include financial support in exchange for private companionship”, wrote Jones, who told the Guardian that the term encompassed sex.
A club pimping out underage girls is bad on its face. A state that turns a blind eye seems complicit on multiple fronts.
Legally, she wasn’t underage in the state. It’s still gross and creepy as fuck, but unfortunately the only crime he committed was embezzlement.
Sex solicitation is still a crime in Alabama
Yep. And the club should be in trouble for employing a 17 year old.
It’s Alabama, owner is probably an active Republican donor
Ever. Single. Time.
Huh. I wonder how he’ll like abusing kids in Georgia or Mississippi in a few weeks.
An organization that doesn’t allow a change as simple as sex is OK is a stupid org. But man this guy, at 30 going for a 17 year old is just fucked up. But its explainable. Priests get to know who’s mentally vulnerable and they are sexually restrained. Do naturally they know where to get sex from. The whole religion concept is so stupid.
