A priest has stepped aside after admitting that he was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
Writing in the Arlington Catholic Herald, Fr William Aitcheson, 62, asked forgiveness for his actions as a young man.
“It’s public information but it rarely comes up,” he wrote. “My actions were despicable. When I think back on burning crosses, a threatening letter, and so on, I feel as though I am speaking of somebody else. It’s hard to believe that was me.”
The Diocese of Arlington said it had approved his request to “temporarily step away from public ministry, for the well-being of the Church and parish community”.
Later reports suggested a reporter had recently contacted the diocese about Fr Aitcheson’s past. In 1977 he was jailed for 90 days after helping to install a burning cross on a black family’s lawn. He had also sent a death threat to Martin Luther King’s wife, Coretta Scott King.
“As a young adult I was Catholic, but in no way practising my faith. The irony that I left an anti-Catholic hate group to rejoin the Catholic Church is not lost on me. It is a reminder of the radical transformation possible through Jesus Christ in his mercy,” he said.
“While 40 years have passed, I must say this: I’m sorry. To anyone who has been subjected to racism or bigotry, I am sorry. I have no excuse, but I hope you will forgive me.”
Phillip and Barbara Butler, the black couple who were victims of the cross-burning, have since asked Fr Aitcheson to identify other perpetrators of the incident.
They also said they had never received any of the $23,000 (£18,000) they were awarded in a civil lawsuit against him.
In response the diocese said it was committed to ensuring that Fr Aitcheson fulfilled his moral and legal obligations.
In his article Fr Aitcheson urged white supremacists to change their path. “You will find no fulfilment in this ideology,” he wrote. “Your hate will never be satisfied and your anger will never subside.”
After the article was published, Bishop Michael Burbidge said he prayed that the message would “reach those who support hate and division, and inspire them to a conversion of heart”.
The diocese said “no accusations of racism or bigotry” had been directed against Fr Aitcheson during his time in the diocese. His article “was written [to tell] his story of transformation”, it said.
American bishops create new body to tackle ‘sin of racism’
The US bishops’ conference has established a new ad hoc committee against racism, saying that there is an “urgent need” to address the “sin of racism” in the country and “even in our Church”.
Conference president Cardinal Daniel DiNardo said: “Recent events have exposed the extent to which the sin of racism continues to afflict our nation.
“The establishment of this new ad hoc committee will be wholly dedicated to engaging the Church and our society to work together in unity to challenge the sin of racism, to listen to persons who are suffering under this sin, and to come together in the love of Christ to know one another as brothers and sisters.”
He appointed Bishop George Murry of Youngstown, Ohio, to chair the new body.
It is the first ad hoc committee the bishops have established since instituting the ad hoc committee for religious liberty in 2011 to address growing concerns over the erosion of freedom of religion in America.
The bishops are expected to release a pastoral letter on racism is also expected to be released next year. The bishops wrote a similar letter in 1979.
Pope: Christians look up in hope
To be christian means having a “gaze full of hope”, Pope Francis said at his general audience last week.
In times of suffering, he said, Christians can find comfort in knowing they have a heavenly father who “weeps tears of infinite pity for his children” and “has prepared for us a different future”.
Christians should not look downwards, he said, as if “forced into an eternal wandering without any reason for our labours” but trust in God’s promise of a “heavenly Jerusalem”.
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