An African-American couple who were once terrorised by a KKK leader – and since turned Catholic priest – have said the man's actions were 'almost unforgivable' and will not meet with the priest unless he names more KKK associates.
Father William Aitcheson, a 62-year-old Roman Catholic priest in the diocese of Arlington, Virginia made headlines this week when he revealed his past as an enthusiastic member of the Ku Klux Klan.
In 1977 he burned a cross on the lawn of Philip and Barbara Butler, according to News 4. Aitcheson was convicted for the crime, but according to the Butlers never apologised nor paid the court-ordered compensation of $23,000.
The African-American couple were invited by the Arlington diocese to meet with Aitcheson, but they refused.
'There's not much to say to him because he was [in the] Ku Klux Klan,' said Philip Butler. 'He had said he was coming back to put a pipe bomb in our door. So, he was a mean person at that time.'
Barbara Butler said she was still scarred by the burning of a large cross, more than six feet tall, on their lawn.
'I will never, ever forget that. We didn't deserve this,' she said. They arere demanding that the priest name his accomplices in the Klan.
'He needed help to put that cross up,' said Phillip Butler.
Aitcheson opened up about his past on Tuesday in the light of the white supremacist violent protest at Charlottesville, Virginia.
He wrote in the Arlington Catholic Herald: 'As an impressionable young man, I was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. 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.'
He added: 'The irony that I left an anti-Catholic hate group to rejoin the Catholic Church is not lost on me,' he wrote. 'It is a reminder of the radical transformation possible through Jesus Christ in his mercy.'
The priest has taken a leave of absence following the news.
