INDIANA
The Pilot
ON: 1/8/2015, BY NATALIE HOEFER
INDIANAPOLIS (CNS) — Norbert Krapf, 71, still loves the wooded hills of his southern Indiana boyhood home near Jasper and the Catholic faith that formed his beliefs from infancy.
Such feelings are remarkable not for their longevity, but that they exist despite Krapf being the victim of clergy sexual abuse six decades ago at his small hometown parish tucked away in the Jasper hills.
In recent years, Krapf — a poet, author and one-time Indiana Poet Laureate now living in Indianapolis — identified his abuser to the bishop of the Diocese of Evansville in which Jasper is located, leading to the removal of the deceased priest’s many accolades and honors.
But Krapf then took a much bigger, public step. Using his gift for poetic expression, he published “Catholic Boy Blues,” a book of poems dealing with the abuse through the voices of the suffering boy, the coping adult, the wise Mr. Blues and the abusive priest.
The book, along with Krapf’s other works, helped earn him the 2014 Eugene and Marilyn Glick Regional Author Award.
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