A Rogue Receives a Red Hat

This past December, Pope Francis installed 21 men to the cardinalate. Much was made about the “color” of those who received red hats, how many hailed from the fabled “peripheries” of which the Pope likes to speak. Five are from Latin America, two from Asia, two from Africa, one from India, and one from Iran. “Their provenance expresses the universality of the church,” Francis said when announcing the rollcall back in October.

Ah, blessed diversity! Isn’t that one of the pillars of the Church?

Amid the festival of self-congratulation, a paleface slipped through the darkening crowd relatively unnoticed. Yet he, too, hails from a periphery of sorts. He’s the erstwhile High Priest of Cloud Cuckoo Land. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? This once-prominent place has been receding on the ecclesial radar for a few decades now and would be barely a perceptible blip if not for the efforts of the present Pontiff to help it retain relevance.

And who is this priest? None other than Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Along with Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Andrew Greeley, Robert Drinan, and others, he’s one of the doddering poster boys of progressive Catholicism, a member of the outgoing generation of clerical scoundrels who covered their theological shenanigans with the mantle of the “Spirit of Vatican II.” Formerly master general of the Dominican Order from 1992 to 2001, Radcliffe is a walking cliché. He parrots all the standard liberal dogmas. Has he promoted women’s ordination? Yes! Same-sex relationships? Of course! Homosexuals in the priesthood? You bet! Holy Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics? Naturally!

Shortly after his elevation was announced, Radcliffe could be heard saying, “It’s a very clericalist point of view” that would deny women’s ordination to the diaconate.

So, it’s clericalist to deny someone a clerical position? Cuckoo!

This is par for the course for Radcliffe. His record resounds with similar clucks and chirps:

• In 2005 Radcliffe said, “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.” Rather than barring homosexuals from the priesthood, he called for the barring of so-called homophobes. “Any deep-rooted prejudice against others, such as homophobia or misogyny,” he said, “would be grounds for rejecting a candidate for the priesthood, but not their sexual orientation.”
• In 2006 he said Catholics should “stand beside” gay people. Not only that, we should willingly subject ourselves to their propaganda. “This means letting our imaginations be stretched open to watching Brokeback Mountain,” a homosexual-themed movie, and “reading gay novels.”
• And celebrating special Masses for them. In 2007 it was discovered that Radcliffe was doing just that for the Roman Catholic Caucus of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, a British homosexualist group in Soho, London, twice a month.
• In a December 2012 article in The Guardian, Radcliffe wrote, “It is heartening to see the wave of support for gay marriages.” But he worried it could cause homosexuals to lose their unique specialness (or whatever), that same-sex marriage “demeans gay people by forcing them to conform to the straight world.” Forget merely standing beside gay people; he insisted that the “committed love of people of the same sex…should be cherished and supported…. The God of love can be present in every true love.”
• In 2013 Radcliffe asserted in the Anglican Pilling Report that gay love has a eucharistic element and can emulate Christ’s Passion. Really! He actually said that. When considering same-sex relationships, he wrote, “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 nonviolent. So in many ways, I think it can be expressive of Christ’s self-gift.” Never mind that the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls homosexual inclinations “objectively disordered” (no. 2358), and says that “under no circumstances” can homosexual relations “be approved” (no. 2357) — in other words, they are forbidden!
• Also in 2013 Radcliffe wrote in America that one of his “profound hopes” is that a “way will be found to welcome divorced-and-remarried people back to Communion.”

If you think the foregoing is ancient history, that Radcliffe, now 79, has mellowed out or come to his senses in his old age, think again.

• In a May 2024 speech at the 25th anniversary conference of LGBT+ Catholics Westminster, Radcliffe fondly recalled his time in Soho: “I have such happy memories of the time when I was on the rota to celebrate Mass for our LGBT+ brothers and sisters.” No regrets there. He also gushed over a recent writing assignment: “a foreword for the English translation of a book by a young Italian, Luigi Testa. It is called Via Crucis di un Ragazzo Gay (The Way of the Cross of a Gay Lad). The Italian preface, which is marvelous, was written by an Italian bishop, the vice-president of the Italian Bishops’ conference…. The book is part of a series promoted by the Vatican, of theology from the peripheries. It is a sign of the profound conversion which is taking place at the center of the Church, as she reaches out to people who have been marginalized and rejected.” Is that really the point of all the blather about the hallowed peripheries? As for what he expects from the Synod on Synodality, he said, “Above all, the embrace of gay people.”
• In September 2024 Radcliffe wrote in L’Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Holy See, that he is on “the synodal path with gay Catholics.” Same-sex “desires,” he wrote, are “God-given.” He then praised “mature gay Catholics” who are in “committed relationships.”

At this point, it’s unlikely Radcliffe will ever come down from his cloud.

None of the above prevented Pope Francis from appointing Radcliffe as consultor to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 2015. Or from tapping him to lead retreats for participants of both the 2023 and 2024 assemblies of the Synod on Synodality. Or from granting him a rare dispensation from the requirement that only bishops can become cardinals.

Instead, something about Radcliffe inspired Francis to shower him with these lofty honors, even elevating him to the rank of a prince of the Church. In doing so, the Pope has given the impression of stamping his imprimatur on Radcliffe’s birdbrained ramblings. Indeed, the progressive National Catholic Reporter spoke of Radcliffe’s “resurrection” under Francis (July 18, 2024). If that wasn’t the intention, what’s the point of honoring a rogue theologian such as Radcliffe? Is it some sort of Lifetime Achievement Award, like the one the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives to old-timers?

Though uncommon, there is precedent for that. Pope St. John Paul II did it, too, red-hatting Avery Dulles and Hans Urs von Balthasar, neither of whom was a bishop. But these men were theological heavyweights, churchmen of gravitas (even if the latter got lost in the mist while chasing after the visions of Adrienne von Speyr; he died before the consistory in which he was to receive his red hat). In like manner, Pope Leo XIII so honored John Henry Newman, also never a bishop, but a profound thinker and one of the most influential figures of his time. Each was made a cardinal at the end of a long, distinguished career.

Is Radcliffe in their class? (I laugh just writing that sentence.) No, Radcliffe is a creampuff compared to them. That would be like comparing Rodney Dangerfield to Kenneth Branagh, John Gielgud, or Laurence Olivier. But then, Francis’s is an unserious pontificate compared to that of John Paul II or Leo XIII, popes of monumental stature in the unbroken succession of Christ’s vicars on earth.

Elise Ann Allen suggested that Francis “is clearly looking to further cement his legacy in the appointment of these 21 new cardinals” (CruxNow.com, Oct. 6). Now his legacy is forever linked to the likes of Timothy Radcliffe, a cleric cuckooing in the clouds. Perhaps that’s appropriate. Who’s next on Francis’s shortlist, Fr. James Martin, S.J.?

©2025 New Oxford Review. All Rights Reserved.

To submit a Letter to the Editor, click here: https://www.newoxfordreview.org/contact-us/letters-to-the-editor/