“...Merton allowed to live a ‘celebrity monk life’...have guests, etc....”
Excellent insights - thanks.
Merton most likely had a mistress at one point, his nurse when he was having a knee? operation. I read some letters in an archive at St. Bonaventure many many years ago to this effect. (the nurse was in Kentucky later, not at Bonaventure -Merton was briefly at Bonaventure much earlier). Clearly I have little respect for Merton and it appears that this Jesuit is the same disobendient type - even though different orders of course. Merton was refused admission to the Carthusians in Vt. because they were smart enough not to want to have anything to do with his antics.
To his superior's eternal credit, when Dom James Fox found out about it he instantly summoned Merton into is office, and ordered him to write a letter to the young lady telling her that she was never to see him, phone him, send letters to him, or have any further contact with him, and that he was likewise forbidden to have no further contact with her whatsoever.
To Merton's credit, he obeyed; I personally believe that this was a key moment in his ongoing conversion, and very much hope for him a merciful judgment and a shortened time in purgatory. I will say a Hail Mary for him now. And for her, if she's living. She later married, and she'd be about 60 now.