I read Michael Ford "Wounded Prophet: A portrait of Henri Nowen"(Doubleday:1999). I found it very disappointing after all the hype I read about him.
Henri was profoundly psychologically disturbed. At the age of 8 his mother had got him a child-size altar and small vestments and had converted his attic into a chapel for him to play act being a priest. Talk about child abuse! His answers were trite and superficial basically boiling down to "Jesus is the answer". People thought that he had some special gift because he too was wounded. He doesn't seem to realise that people may be asking questions where Jesus is not the answer and something more substantial was needed.
He was a homosexual who didn't have the guts to come out of the closet for fear of losing money and readership and the disapproval of the Catholic church which paid him. It was a cowardly act. He died without letting the world know of his "secret sin" and helping many other homosexuals. I doubt whether I will bother reading anything else of his work unless it comes to me free.
