Dispute Resolved Over `Rapist' Priests Gravestone

WHEATON, Ill. (AP) -- 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." The diocese owns the suburban Wheaton cemetery where Ridgeway is buried.

But The Chicago Tribune reports Ridgeway's son, Jack Ruhl of Kalamazoo, Michigan, recently compromised with diocese officials on an alternate epitaph that reads: "She supported priest sexual abuse victims."

The marker was installed Dec. 22 for the west suburban Lisle woman, who died in 2015.

Diocese spokesman Edward Flavin says church officials are pleased with the resolution and have no further comment.

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