The Reagans visited the Butlers in 1982 after reading about their ordeal.
After months of silence, there is finally word about my former pastor Fr. William Aitcheson who stepped down from his position at St. Leo's after being publicly exposed for his KKK activities 40 years ago. Crux News reported today that Father sent a handwritten letter of apology dated September 8th (Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Mother) including financial restitution to Barbara and Phillip Butler. He expressed his heartfelt regret for the harm he caused the couple by burning a cross on their lawn in 1977. [Read previous posts about Fr. Aitcheson here and here]
The diocese issued a statement following a press conference the Butlers and their attorney held on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th. The Butlers refused to meet personally with Fr. Aitcheson and initially refused even to accept Fr. Aitcheson's letter of apology and his check for restitution. The Butlers later reconsidered and took the money ($23,000 in restitution and $9600 in lawyers' fees which Father is paying from his personal funds and through a loan), but the couple have publicly stated they don't know what it will take before they can forgive him.
Planned Parenthood loves to pooh-pooh the facts about Margaret Sanger's racism. But it is a historical fact that Sanger was invited and accepted an invitation to speak at a Ku Klux Klan ralley which generated, according to her, another dozen invitations. I have been trying to find the speech she gave on that occasion without success, but I can guess.
Sanger was a WASP elitist who believed that blacks, Catholics, Jews, Irish immigrants and many other groups were human weeds. She must have particularly hated the large Catholic families of the early 20th century. Perhaps she was thinking of Catholic families when she said:
THE MOST serious evil of our times is that of encouraging the bringing into the world of large families. The most immoral practice of the day is breeding too many children....
The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it....
The immorality of bringing into being a large family is a wrong-doing shared by three—the mother, the father and society. Upon all three falls the burden of guilt. It may be said for the mother and father that they are usually ignorant. What shall be said of society? What shall be said of us who permit outworn laws and customs to persist in piling up the appalling sum of public expense, misery and spiritual degradation? The indictment against the large unwanted family is written in human woe. Who in the light of intelligent understanding shall have the brazenness to stand up and defend it? Read the complete article.
Sanger described her cloak and dagger experience with the KKK in her autobiography. A warning about that work. I read it about twenty years ago and found it to be a self-serving work. Sanger often credited herself with the work of others. She also exaggerated her credentials claiming to be a nurse. She had some nurses training, never completed. So who knows how much she exaggerated this tale. At any rate, she was among her own, illustrated by the fact that she received numerous invitations afterwards. The Klan hated many of the same groups she did including "Negroes" whom she considered indiscriminate breeders.
Sanger is a champion of the Culture of Death. Just as the Church has saints, God's generals, Satan has his own leaders. Sanger was surely one of them. Did she repent before she died as a drug abusing alcoholic? I can't begin to guess, but her life was a tragedy from start to finish. She was a charismatic woman who could have done great good had she marched under the standard of Christ. She chose instead to march under Satan's banner. God have mercy on her.
