Michigan man reaches compromise with diocese over his mother’s controversial gravestone epitaph referencing church sex crimes

WHEATON (IL)
Associated Press, as it appeared in The Daily Mail

December 31, 2017

Jack Ruhl of Michigan wanted to install a gravestone on his mother Marguerite Ridgeway’s grave in Assumption Cemetery in Wheaton, Illinois

He wanted her epitaph to read: ‘She supported priest rapist victims;’ the Roman Catholic Diocese did not agree to the use of the word ‘rapist’

A compromise was reached for the gravestone which was installed December 22

It now reads: ‘She supported priest sexual abuse victims’

Ridgeway had been a devout Catholic before she became disillusioned with the church over its handling of its sex abuse scandal

A man who wanted to install a gravestone at a suburban Chicago cemetery that proclaimed his late mother’s support for victims of ‘rapist’ priests has reached a resolution with a Roman Catholic diocese.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet refused to allow the proposed marker for Marguerite Ridgeway because it included what the diocese called ‘explicit language’.

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