File 30 - Interview with Frederick de Bruyn

File consists of an interview with Frederick (Fic) de Bruyn interviewed by Peter Naus in Amersfoort, The Netherlands. de Bruyn lives in Amersfoort, The Netherlands and is a retired priest from the Archdiocese of Utrecht. de Bruyn met Nouwen at the Rijsenburg seminary (The Netherlands). The interview is transcribed and available electronically or in hard copy. All transcriptions and audio recordings are in Dutch. Brief English notes from the interviewer are available in the file. They include: “Fic is a retired priest from the archdiocese of Utretcht. He knew Henri from the Rijsenburg seminary, although he claimed he never got to know him all that well. He was also, like Henri, a member of the Newman club at seminary. He came across as a thoughtful, kind man who has weathered the storms in Dutch Roman Catholicism very well. His feelings about Henri's books were mixed; he thought Henri overly 'spiritualised' social problems, something he also noticed when he visited Henri in New York City somewhere in the seventies. I wish I could have talked some more with him about the climate in the Dutch Roman Church and how he had come to grips with it. He made several self deprecatory comments with respect to the interview and did not seem convinced by my assurances that his observations were very useful. I should mention also that he not respond initially to my request for an interview. I asked the assistance of another interviewee, Rene van Eyden, to convince him to participate."