Father Alex Crow, a priest of the Archdiocese of Mobile, has contracted a civil marriage with the 18-year-old woman with whom he absconded to Italy in July.
The pair later returned to Alabama, and the local district attorney announced earlier this month that no charges would be filed.
Under the Code of Canon Law, the invalid contraction of marriage by a cleric results in his automatic suspension; however, Archbishop Thomas Rodi of Mobile had already suspended Father Crow for abandoning his parish assignment.
Father Crow faces the almost certain prospect of the additional canonical penalty of dismissal from the clerical state.