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Cemetery Won't Allow Mention Of 'Rapist' Priests At Grave

WHEATON, Ill. (AP/WWJ) - A Kalamazoo man is in a dispute with a Roman Catholic diocese over his efforts to install a marker at his mother's gravesite at a Chicago-area cemetery that proclaims her support for victims of "rapist" priests.

Jack Ruhl says the Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet will not allow a marker at his mother Marguerite Ridgeway's gravesite at a cemetery the diocese owns because it includes "explicit language," The Chicago Tribune reported.

Ruhl wants to install a marker that reads: "She supported priest rapist victims."

Ridgeway died in 2015 and is buried at a cemetery the diocese owns.

A diocese attorney suggested in a letter that the marker could read that Ridgeway supported "victims of clergy sex abuse." But Ruhl says it is important to keep the words "priest rapist victims" because those are the people his mother supported.

© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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