The Diocese of Covington has exonerated the Covington Catholic students of any wrongdoing in the viral incident following the March for Life in January — and added that their actions were “laudatory.”

The Diocese had originally condemned the students and apologized on behalf of the students after a liberal media mob swarmed to attack the students.

In a statement on Wednesday, Bishop Rev. Roger Foys said that an independent investigation into the incident found that the boys did not instigate the incident and had not acted disrespectfully as far-left Native American activist Nathan Phillips had claimed.

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Though the boys had been subjected to extreme racist abuse by a group called the Black Israelites, the investigation found that there was “no evidence that students responded with any offensive or racist statements of their own.”

“In these past several weeks since the original video went viral, two well-worn and oft-used adages come to mind,” the Bishop wrote. “‘Seeing is believing’ and ‘Perception is reality.’ The immediate world-wide reaction to the initial video led everyone to believe that our students had initiated the incident and the perception of those few minutes of video became a reality.” A mother of one of the students seen in the video told the Gateway Pundit that she is happy with the result of the independent investigation — but wishes there had been an apology. “I’m happy with the result of the independent investigation, and pleased to see that the bishop supported the findings. I agree there was NO fault on the part of the kids. However, I didn’t read an apology for the initial condemnation — that would have been nice!” the mother said of the Bishop’s statement.