A Catholic archbishop said this week that be believes the Vatican will soon move to officially oust the disgraced Mobile priest who ran off to Italy with an 18-year-old woman in the summer and eventually married her.

Alex Crow, 30, made headlines over the summer when law enforcement officials announced an investigation into his relationship with a former McGill-Toolen Catholic High School student. She graduated in 2023 and turned 18 in June.

The pair left the U.S. and fled to Italy in July before returning recently. Soon after they returned a marriage license was filed showing that the two had wed.

The investigation included the discovery of a love letter the girl received from Crow on Valentine’s Day – when she was only 17 years-old and a high school student.

Eventually, after the girl refused to speak with investigators, both of the Mobile District Attorney’s Office and the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office said they had closed their investigations.

Crow has already been suspended, but Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi suggested this week that Crow’s marriage would seal his ultimate fate as a Catholic priest.

“The recent news of Crow’s civil marriage only confirms the Archbishop’s judgment. Archbishop Rodi anticipates that the Vatican will eventually laicize Alex Crow,” a state from the Archdiocese of Mobile reads. Laicize simply means fully removing all priestly duties, thus returning the person to a lay man.

Rodi had previously called Crow’s actions as “totally unbecoming of a priest.”