henri the wounded prophet

this afternoon's session at the nouwen conference was a panel of 4 of his biographers talking about whether his life matched well with his text. there was a lot of time spent on talking about his sexuality, and i guess it was the first time that some of the people heard about him as gay. i have this mental picture of a older pious-looking women who appeared very perplexed and disturbed the whole time. i felt bad for her.

apparently, michael ford was the first to write about it (for henri), and so there were talks among the different biographers as to the appropriateness of that. ford was not there today though, thus unable to defend for himself. there were also wonderings as to how helpful it would be if henri did come out and maybe write a book on homosexuality to help guide his fellow christians in this way.