After initially condemning some local school boys over an incident following the March for Life, the Diocese of Covington has released an apologetic letter signed by Bishop Foys.

“We are sorry that this situation has caused such disruption in the lives of so many. We apologize to anyone who has been offended in any way by either of our statements which were made with good will based on the information we had,” Foys writes in the letter. “We should not have allowed ourselves to be bullied and pressured into making a statement prematurely, and we take full responsibility for it.”

Bishop Foys was referring to an incident after the March for Life in which a group of Covington Catholic students were being harassed by so-called Black Hebrew Israelites, then confronted by Nathan Phillips who banged a drum in the smiling face of one of the students. An edited version of the video from the incident was plastered across social and mainstream media leading people to believe that the Covington Catholic boys had instigated and berated the man, when a fuller picture showed the opposite.

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“I especially apologize to Nicholas Sandmann and his family as well as to all CovCath families who have felt abandoned during this ordeal,” he continues. “Nicholas unfortunately has become the face of these allegations based on video clips. This is not fair. It is not just.”