A longtime Roman Catholic priest in Alabama has voluntarily left the clergy after a woman alleged to his superiors that he provided her financial support in exchange for “private companionship” including sex beginning when she was 17.

Robert Sullivan’s self-imposed removal from the priesthood – known as laicization – was announced Wednesday, the day before the US holiday of Thanksgiving, in a public statement from Birmingham, Alabama, by Bishop Steven Raica.

The woman who accused Sullivan, Heather Jones, filed her allegations in a formal written statement to the Birmingham diocese that she then shared exclusively with the Guardian in August. Jones, now 33, also maintained that Sullivan had paid her hundreds of thousands of dollars to remain silent about their arrangement, backing up

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