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Cemetery won’t allow mention of “rapist” priests at grave

Posted at 8:55 AM, Oct 22, 2017
and last updated 2017-10-22 08:55:17-04

WHEATON, Ill. (AP) — A man is in a dispute with a Roman Catholic diocese over his efforts to install a marker at his mother’s gravesite at a suburban Chicago cemetery that proclaims her support for victims of “rapist” priests.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Jack Ruhl of Kalamazoo, Michigan, was informed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet that it would not allow a marker at the grave of Marguerite Ridgeway at a cemetery the diocese owns in the suburban Wheaton that incudes what it calls “explicit language.” Ridgeway died in 2015.

The attorney suggested in a letter that the marker could read that Ridgeway supported “victims of clergy sex abuse.”

Ruhl says it is important to keep the words “priest rapist victims” because those are the people his mother supported.