With book on sex abuse, author hopes to help himself, others heal

(CNS photo)

In the 1950s, Norbert Krapf was sexually abused -- along with scores of other boys -- by a priest of the Diocese of Evansville, Indiana, who was loved and respected by the community.
After five decades of silence, Krapf -- a retired professor, author and award-winning former Indiana Poet Laureate -- confronted the monster of his past both by outing the then-deceased priest to the bishop and, in 2012, publishing a book of poems called "Catholic Boy Blues" to help himself and other victims heal.
This year, Krapf published "Shrinking the Monster: Healing the Wounds of Our Abuse." In Krapf's own words, the book is a "prose memoir about the experience of writing those poems, with an emphasis on the process of my recovery from the abuse." That experience, as outlined in the book, was a journey of pain, struggles, victories and healing.