The book has no title, no author, no explanatory words - just a few quotes from The Bible, and page after page of first names.
Keith Robert Jeffrey Michael Michael Kim Curtis
Richard Scott John Steven Peter Michael
Jackie Robert Wayne Stephen Paul Linda
Much ink has been spilled over the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the last six years, but this work is different: a hand-painted list of 1,476 men and women who have reported being sexually abused by a Catholic priest, deacon, or nun in the Archdiocese of Boston.
Like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the book of names the Archdiocese of Boston gave to Pope Benedict XVI was an unusual effort to humanize a crisis of unimaginable scale, in this case for a pontiff who had once minimized the scope of abuse within the church. Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston presented the book at the historic Washington meeting between the pontiff and five abuse victims from Boston on April 17, midway through a papal trip to the United States during which Benedict spoke out four times about the pain and damage caused by clergy sexual abuse. - Boston Globe
O'Malley gives the book a thumbs up.
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