Michael W. Higgins

“Henri told Anke and I during a visit in 1978 that he was homosexual. The context in which he told us this was marked by his own profound agony. I began then to appreciate the inner turmoil he must have felt for so many, many years. I can say as well that I personally felt a profound compassion for him. By 1978, I had begun to arrive at different conceptions of sexuality that departed from the conventional paradigms. In the process of more carefully examining the very nature of sexual orientations, I developed a new openness I never had previously. That is not to say that I was free of the inhibitions and preconceptions that I held before, only that I was not blown away by Henri’s disclosure and there was a time when I would have been. But his homosexuality wasn’t really the problem; it was his insatiable need for emotional intimacy.”
― Michael W. Higgins, Genius Born of Anguish: The Life and Legacy of Henri Nouwen