Va. priest admits previous tie to KKK

A Catholic priest will voluntarily “step away from public ministry” after acknowledging that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan 40 years ago, the Catholic Diocese of Arlington said Tuesday.

“When I think back on burning crosses, a threatening letter and so on, I feel as though I am speaking of somebody else,” William Aitcheson wrote in a story for The Arlington Catholic Herald published Monday. “It’s hard to believe that was me.”

Aitcheson said he was an “impressionable young man” at the time, and his actions were “despicable.” He said the images of violence in Charlottesville, Va., last week, when a white nationalist rally exploded in violence and a counter-protester was killed, brought back memories from a bleak period in his life. “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,” Aitcheson wrote. “I have no excuse, but I hope you will forgive me.”

Aitcheson wrote that the events in Charlottesville embarrassed the nation. “Racists have polluted minds, twisted by an ideology that reinforces the false belief that they are superior to others,” he wrote.

Aitcheson was a 23-year-old University of Maryland student when he was charged in 1977 with six cross burnings in Prince George’s County, Md., one count of making bomb threats and two of manufacturing pipe bombs, according to an article from The Washington Post. Maryland State police said the KKK lodge planned to bomb homes of blacks and the offices of the NAACP, the Post reported.