Rev. William Aitcheson served at the Saint Leo in Fairfax. (Photo via Saint Leo)

A local black couple is seeking closure from a priest and former Ku Klux Klan member who this week publicly expressed remorse about burning a cross on their lawn more than 40 years ago.

Philip and Barbara Butler said at a press conference on Wednesday that Rev. William Aitcheson has never apologized to them, nor paid a court-ordered fine.

The diocese is encouraging Aitcheson “to fulfill his legal and moral obligations to the Butler family,” it writes in a statement. A spokesperson confirms that means paying the fine.

Officials say that the priest, who is on temporary leave of absence from parish duties, “fully acknowledges that the Butler family deserved and deserves an apology,” and he is willing to meeting with them privately along with Catholic Diocese of Arlington Bishop Michael Burbidge.

Before meeting him in person, the couple wants Aitcheson to disclose the names of other KKK members who were with him at the their home in College Park in January 1977, as first reported by NBC 4.

Aitcheson, who most recently served as parochial vicar at St. Leo the Great in Fairfax City, wrote an editorial on Monday in which he expressed remorse about his actions “as an impressionable young man” and announced that he was stepping down from the clergy for the well being of the church and parish community.

When he was student at the University of Maryland, Aitcheson went to jail in the 1970s for several cross burnings, including at the Butler’s home, as well as for mailing threatening letters to Coretta Scott King.

The Washington Post reported on the incident in 1982 after the Butlers won a civil case against Aitcheson. The article prompted President and Mrs. Reagan to visit the couple’s home that same day. Reagan said to reporters afterward that he told the couple ”how much I regretted any unpleasantness that they may have had because there shouldn’t be any place in our country for that sort of thing.”

While Aitcheson apologized in the editorial, the Butlers said he never apologized to them personally for putting the seven-foot cross in their yard and setting it on fire. They said he also still owes them $23,000 in damages that they were awarded in the civil case.

Until this week, the Butlers didn’t know that 62-year-old Aitcheson had become a priest or still lived in the D.C. region. “It has been years and we have never heard one word or anything and then all of a sudden it was really just like a shock,” Mrs. Butler said, according to CBS.

Now, they are reliving the incident. “I went to the door. And I saw it was and I was just like why? You know, where did this come from?” she recalled. “I will never, ever forget. We didn’t deserve this. No one deserves this.”

While Aitcheson said in the editorial that he was prompted to speak out following images from the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, the diocese later said that a reporter, who introduced herself as a parishioner, contacted the church after finding out that Aitcheson’s legal name matched that of a man arrested in the 1970s.

Officials read the unnamed reporter’s email on Saturday, according spokesperson Billy Atwell.

After that correspondence, Aitcheson “acknowledged his past,” which was already public record, “and saw the opportunity to tell his story in the hopes that others would see the possibility of conversion and repentance, especially given the context of what occurred in Charlottesville,” according to the diocese’ statement.

The diocese said he “agrees to fully cooperate with law enforcement addressing details of this case that were not gathered previously.”