An Alabama priest who was removed from ministry has reportedly entered into a civil marriage with an 18-year-old woman he met through his work at a Catholic high school.
Father Alex Crow, 31, was suspended from ministry in July after he abandoned his assignment and left the country with the woman one month after she turned 18.
The Archdiocese of Mobile, Alabama suspended his priestly faculties, which prohibits him from presenting himself as a priest, saying Mass, leading church ministries, or entering school grounds.
Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi said in a statement reported by NBC News 15 that he expects the Vatican to laicize Crow. He had previously said that he sees no possible way for Crow to return to the priesthood.
“The recent news of Crow’s civil marriage only confirms the Archbishop’s judgment,” the statement read. “Archbishop Rodi anticipates that the Vatican will eventually laicize Alex Crow.”
The archdiocese reported to the Mobile District Attorney’s office that Crow had traveled in July to Europe with the woman, who he met through his ministry at McGill-Toolen Catholic High School. The office, however, did not find evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Crow and the woman signed a notarized marriage certificate on Nov. 17, 2023, and the probate court received it on Monday, according to WKRG News 5 in Mobile.
The soon-to-be-laicized priest was ordained in the archdiocese on June 5, 2021, according to a now-removed bio of him on the Corpus Christi parish website.
He studied at Saint Joseph Abbey and Seminary College in St. Benedict, Louisiana, earning a baccalaureate of liberal arts and philosophy. He holds a master’s of divinity from Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology, and a baccalaureate of sacred theology from the Pontifical Atheneum of San Anselmo, Rome, with a concentration in demonology and exorcism, according to his biography.
Crow, his biography says, was an Episcopalian, before joining the Presbyterian church. It wasn’t until he was 21 years old that he felt the call to become a priest, the biography says.
He has given several lectures on Marian apparitions and spiritual warfare for his parish, according to posts from the parish’s Facebook page.
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Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.
Vatican City, Jun 17, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).
The Vatican is partnering in an event that will bring together scientists and leaders of the world’s … […]
Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke during the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, June 29, 2019. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
The American cardinal, who founded the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Wisconsin, announced the prayer initiative in a video address posted over the weekend.
“Our Lord has not called us to fear. No matter the darkness of our age, men and women of faith are not without the truth and love of Christ, nor the faithful care of his mother,” Burke wrote in an accompanying letter posed to the Guadalupe shrine website.
“The darkness of sin seems so great. But Our Lord has not called us to fear! Evil cannot approach the power of God’s grace. Sin cannot prevent Our Lord’s healing mercy from reaching those who repent and seek it. And nothing can diminish the care and protection of Our Lady for us, which remain as strong today as they were 500 years ago.”
A novena, a traditional Catholic practice usually consisting of a nine-day series of petitionary prayers, can also be much longer. Those who sign up to join Burke’s novena will receive, via email, short video reflections from the cardinal each month in addition to regular written reflections and prayers.
Recalling St. Juan Diego, to whom Christ’s mother appeared under the name of Our Lady of Guadalupe in present-day Mexico in 1531, Burke invited “all Catholics, especially those in the Americas” to ask for the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe for “maternal care and protection.”
“The world wrestled with famine and disease, and war in the Holy Land threatened to reduce that beautiful and tortured region to chaos. Then, too, poisonous confusion from within the Church corroded the faith of Christians the world over,” Burke wrote.
“And then, too, we saw the forces of sin retreat before the presence of Our Lady. Through St. Juan Diego’s humble and courageous cooperation with grace, Our Lady claimed the New World for Christ, drawing nearly 9 million new souls into the Church by the time of St. Juan Diego’s death in 1548. It is this same maternal care and protection that we seek today — a care and protection that she will grant us, should we earnestly ask for it.”
A native of Wisconsin, Burke previously shepherded the Diocese of La Crosse and the Archdiocese of St. Louis before being appointed in 2008 as head of the Church’s highest court, the Apostolic Signatura, until 2014.
The President of the Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress, Father Livingston Olivares (left), accompanies EWTN Vice President for Programming and Production Peter Gagnon (center-right), EWTN Vice President for Spanish-language Production, Marketing, and Radio Enrique Duprat (center-left), EWTN Production Director Michael Holmes (far right), and IEC Quito 2024 Communications Coordinator Marcelo Mejía (front, kneeling) at the Monument to the Equator, the exact location of the Equator (from which the country of Ecuador takes its name) on the outskirts of the country’s capital city of Quito, site of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress. / Credit: Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress
ACI Prensa Staff, May 21, 2024 / 06:40 am (CNA).
The 53rd International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) has chosen EWTN as the official channel for providing live coverage of the event, which will take place from Sept. 8–15 in Quito, Ecuador.
“The 53rd International Eucharistic Congress, which will be held in Quito Sept. 8–15, has chosen EWTN as its official channel, which will broadcast everything related” to this great event, said Father Juan Carlos Garzón, secretary-general of the IEC Quito 2024, in a statement sent from Rome to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.
The theme for this year’s International Eucharistic Congress is “Fraternity to Heal the World.” On Monday, the Vatican also announced that Pope Francis designated Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect for the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, as pontifical legate to the congress.
Garzón was in Rome last week as part of a delegation, chaired by Alfredo Espinoza Mateus, archbishop of Quito and primate of Ecuador, “to hold a series of meetings with the main papal authorities.”
Since the beginning of the preparations for IEC 2024, Garzón added: “EWTN has been present at the orientation and training for IEC 2024 communications personnel.”
Logo for the 53rd International Eucharistic Congress that will take place in Quito, Ecuador, from Sept. 8-15, 2024. Credit: Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress
EWTN preparations for IEC Quito 2024
In tandem, to coordinate EWTN’s transmissions of IEC Quito 2024, a team from the network visited the Ecuadorian capital, including the Quito Metropolitan Convention Center, where the congress will be held.
The team was comprised of EWTN Vice President for Programming and Production Peter Gagnon, EWTN Director of Production Michael Holmes, and EWTN Vice President for Spanish-language Production, Marketing, and Radio Enrique Duprat.
Gagnon said EWTN transmissions of the event will be offered in Spanish, English, and German. “This will be a wonderful event for those attending and for those watching,” Gagnon said.
“For EWTN, it is an immense joy to be the channel for the Quito 2024 International Eucharistic Congress,” Duprat said. “It is essential for us to be the platform on which, no matter where our audience is, everyone can enjoy the most important Catholic events in the Church.”
As for coverage details, Duprat said: “The plan is to be able to offer this International Eucharistic Congress live and direct from Quito and in multiple languages [Spanish, English, and German] both through our television and radio signals, the internet, and through our digital app.”
The event coincides with the 150th anniversary of the 1874 consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1886, Quito was also the site of the first National Eucharistic Congress.
During their preparatory visit, the EWTN team traveled the route of a procession that will take place on Sept. 14 in the historic center of Quito, which will begin with a Mass in San Francisco Plaza and then head to the Basilica of the National Vow, where benediction will be given.
They also visited the IEC offices, where they were received by Garzón, who explained how the organization of the event is progressing, including the schedule of a theological symposium to be held Sept. 4–7, just prior to the Sept. 8–15 congress.
The EWTN delegation also visited the Middle of the World Park and Monument to the Equator, marking the equator dividing the northern and southern hemispheres and where a Liturgy of the Word is planned with emphasis on care for creation.
Registration underway
Registration for the International Eucharistic Congress, both for the theological symposium and for the congress itself, is underway and available through the event website.
The largest Catholic media organization in the world, EWTN’s 11 global TV channels and numerous regional channels are broadcast in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week to over 425 million television households in more than 160 countries and territories. EWTN platforms also include radio services transmitted through SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and more than 600 domestic and international AM and FM radio affiliates and a worldwide shortwave radio service.
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., EWTN News operates multiple global news services, including Catholic News Agency; The National Catholic Register newspaper and digital platform; ACI Prensa in Spanish; ACI Digital in Portuguese; ACI Stampa in Italian; ACI Africa in English, French, and Portuguese; ACI Mena in Arabic; CNA Deutsch in German; and ChurchPop, a digital platform that creates content in several languages. It also produces numerous television news programs including “EWTN News Nightly,” “EWTN News In Depth,” “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly,” and “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
I’m glad we are “discerning the signs of the times” and being led into “conversations of the Spirit” to weed out those traditionalist orthodox nuts who might apply to seminary and instead give us the kinds of opening, non-rigid, dialogue-inclined accompanying clergy like this one … who accompanied his girlfriend to Europe. Tommy Rodi is patting himself on the back for stripping Crowe’s faculties in July: would it be appropriate to note that he’s been bishop since 2008 so, as ordinary, HAD TO APPROVE ordaining this guy in 2021. Oh, yeh, forgot to mention THAT …. Enough of excuses for the mediocrities that have nested in the episcopal college…..
Actually, if he went through years of seminary and NO ONE offered any hint he was not suited, I cannot blame the bishop for ordaining him. On the other hand, if the bishop saw something the seminary people did not and took no action, then yes, he is to blame. From the story, I cannot tell which is correct.
Sorry?? HAD to ordain him?? I would think the fact that he had first been an Episcopalian, than a Presbyterian, and the Catholic Church was his THIRD choice, would have been enough to eliminate him from the seminary. Period. These sort of unorthodox histories can be reflective of a pattern of behavior which will continue to be repeated. His commitment to the priesthood appeared to have lasted two years, until he came upon a woman who appealed. His commitment to his vocation was clearly very thin. Maybe if the Pope were not working overtime shutting down Latin Mass, which seems to produce MANY more vocations than the norm, the seminaries would not feel they have to accept marginal candidates. This is a disgrace, in any case.
I’m glad we are “discerning the signs of the times” and being led into “conversations of the Spirit” to weed out those traditionalist orthodox nuts who might apply to seminary and instead give us the kinds of opening, non-rigid, dialogue-inclined accompanying clergy like this one … who accompanied his girlfriend to Europe. Tommy Rodi is patting himself on the back for stripping Crowe’s faculties in July: would it be appropriate to note that he’s been bishop since 2008 so, as ordinary, HAD TO APPROVE ordaining this guy in 2021. Oh, yeh, forgot to mention THAT …. Enough of excuses for the mediocrities that have nested in the episcopal college…..
Actually, if he went through years of seminary and NO ONE offered any hint he was not suited, I cannot blame the bishop for ordaining him. On the other hand, if the bishop saw something the seminary people did not and took no action, then yes, he is to blame. From the story, I cannot tell which is correct.
Crow couldn’t keep his vows to the Church I doubt he’ll be able to keep his vows to his groomed “wife”.
Sorry?? HAD to ordain him?? I would think the fact that he had first been an Episcopalian, than a Presbyterian, and the Catholic Church was his THIRD choice, would have been enough to eliminate him from the seminary. Period. These sort of unorthodox histories can be reflective of a pattern of behavior which will continue to be repeated. His commitment to the priesthood appeared to have lasted two years, until he came upon a woman who appealed. His commitment to his vocation was clearly very thin. Maybe if the Pope were not working overtime shutting down Latin Mass, which seems to produce MANY more vocations than the norm, the seminaries would not feel they have to accept marginal candidates. This is a disgrace, in any case.
Has it occurred to anyone that if we ordained some mature, married permanent Deacons, we could have more reliable Priests and avoid this nonsense?
People might say, oh, this violates the celibacy rule, but Richard Sipe in his research found that 50% of Priests were not totally celibate anyway.
Ordain some mature married men and avoid this foolishness of young Priests being interested in teenage girls.