"When I think back on burning crosses, a threatening letter, and so on, I feel as though I am speaking of somebody else," Father William Aitcheson wrote in a story for the 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, adding that his actions were "despicable." He said the images of violence in Charlottesville last week, when a white nationalist rally exploded in violence and the death of a counterprotester, 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. But he said Christ teaches that all people are "wonderfully made," regardless of skin color or ethnicity