VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Over the last two years, the Wikipedia entry for Pope Francis’ newly named Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe has been edited to remove references to his promotion of LGBT issues.
In an unscheduled announcement after the Angelus on October 6, Pope Francis revealed the names of the 21 new cardinals he will create on December 8. Among the most notable in the list – one of the 20 eligible to vote for the next pope – is Father Timothy Radcliffe O.P., a controversial Dominican who has risen to renewed prominence under Francis.
For Catholics surprised by the inclusion of the English Dominican among the College of Cardinals and keen to find out more about him, the priest’s Wikipedia entry will prove insufficient due to its judicious pruning over the last two years.
This editing notably occurred while Radcliffe rose to a renewed prominence in the Church, due to Francis having appointing him as a member of, and retreat preacher for, the Synod on Synodality.
Radcliffe was formerly Master of the Dominican Order from 1992 to 2001, and then maintained a quieter profile until his involvement with the Synod.
However, his background is better known for his positions on LGBT issues and openness to homosexual behavior.
Public data confusion
This aspect of Radcliffe’s life is no longer to be found on Wikipedia, as a glance at the current entry for the cardinal-elect shows.
The article has been edited a significant number of times since August 2022, which was when the last entry documenting Radcliffe’s promotion of LGBT issues was posted. The now-archived web listing notes that Radcliffe was a celebrant at the notorious LGBT Masses in Soho, London; this is absent in the current listing.
However, Radcliffe himself has confirmed that he celebrated Masses for the LGBT group in Soho. Just earlier this year he recalled that he had “such happy memories of the time when I was on the rota to celebrate Mass for our LGBT+ brothers and sisters in Soho before the Mass moved to the care of the Jesuits in Farm Street.”
The now-archived Wiki entry also documented that EWTN canceled plans to cover Ireland’s “Divine Mercy Conference” in 2014 due to Radcliffe’s participation in the event. “Many Catholics in Ireland are concerned” about Radcliffe’s presence at the conference, stated EWTN host and former MEP Kathy Sinnott, due to his “stated views on human sexuality and in particular on homosexuality.” This information is also absent in the current Wikipedia listing.
The August 2022 entry included a now-deleted quote from Radcliffe, in which he compared homosexual sexual activity to Christ’s gift of self in the Eucharist. He stated – while contributing to the 2013 Anglican report on human sexual ethics – that “not every marriage is fertile” and that “surely it is in the kind and healing words that we offer each other that we all share in fertility of that most intimate moment”:
How does all of this bear on the question of gay sexuality? We cannot begin with the question of whether it is permitted or forbidden! We must ask what it means, and how far it is Eucharistic. Certainly it can be generous, vulnerable, tender, mutual and non-violent. So in many ways, I would think that it can be expressive of Christ’s self-gift. We can also see how it can be expressive of mutual fidelity, a covenantal relationship in which two people bind themselves to each other for ever.
In contrast, the current listing for Radcliffe presents – on the subject of homosexuality – an isolated quotation from a 2012 article in which he stated that the Catholic Church “does not oppose gay marriage. It considers it to be impossible.” While this line appears to defend Catholic teaching, Radcliffe argued in the same article that:
This is not to denigrate committed love of people of the same sex. This too should be cherished and supported, which is why church leaders are slowly coming to support same-sex civil unions. The God of love can be present in every true love.
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Lesser known record of Radcliffe’s theology
The incoming cardinal’s theological record on homosexuality largely contrasts with, and contradicts, Catholic teaching on the matter.
Just prior to the Vatican issuing its 2005 document reaffirming the ban on admitting men with “homosexual tendencies” into seminaries, Radcliffe publicly objected to the measure. Writing to the London Times, Radcliffe argued that “[a]ny deep-rooted prejudice against others, such as homophobia or misogyny, would be grounds for rejecting a candidate for the priesthood, but not their sexual orientation.”
He also wrote an article for The Tablet, attesting that “I have no doubt that God does call homosexuals to the priesthood, and they are among the most dedicated and impressive priests I have met.”
“We may presume that God will continue to call both homosexuals and heterosexuals to the priesthood because the Church needs the gift of both,” he is recorded as saying during a retreat in Canada in the early 2000’s.
Replying to this correspondent during the 2023 Synod, Radcliffe appeared to suggest that homosexuals could happily be priests, providing they did not make their sexuality “the most important part of their identity.”
In 2012, the English Dominican wrote in the UK’s Guardian that “it is heartening to see the wave of support for gay marriages. It shows a society that aspires to an open tolerance of all sorts of people, a desire for us to live together in mutual acceptance.” This came in the context of public debate about legalizing same-sex ‘marriage’ in the U.K., which eventually happened in 2013.
Radcliffe’s particular style of writing and public speaking often involves questioning Catholic teaching and positing settled doctrine as something which can be discussed with a view to potential change.
READ: Pro-LGBT Dominican consistently contradicts Scripture during retreat for Synod members
He also advocates for the divorced and “remarried” to receive Holy Communion, particularly in light of Pope Francis’ controversial apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Prior to the exhortation’s publication, Radcliffe wrote in 2013 that he had “two profound hopes.” They were:
That a way will be found to welcome divorced and remarried people back to communion. And, most important, that women will be given real authority and voice in the church. The pope expresses his desire that this may happen, but what concrete form can it take? He believes that the ordination of women to the ministerial priesthood is not possible, but decision-making in the church has become ever more closely linked to ordination in recent years. Can that bond be loosened? Let us hope that women may be ordained to the diaconate and so have a place in preaching at the Eucharist. What other ways can authority be shared?
With the retreats he delivered at the Synod on Synodality in 2023 and 2024, Radcliffe gained renewed international attention and set the stage for the meetings with the nearly 400 participants of the Synod.
Though Radcliffe will be a cardinal-elector only until next August, when he reaches his 80th birthday, his appointment signifies Francis’ personal pleasure and approval of Radcliffe’s emergence as a promoter of ideals so close to Francis’ own heart.