Transcript

Recently, Pope Francis announced that he would be elevating 21 men to the office of Cardinal, and one of them is a Dominican priest named Father Timothy Radcliffe.

Now, he's created controversy with his past statements about homosexuality, so I wanted to go through a recent article he wrote for Father James Martin's Outreach Magazine and show what's so pernicious about his rhetoric, and after that, I'll give some brief thoughts about Pope Francis selecting him to be a cardinal.

First, like Father Martin, Father Radcliffe will talk out of both sides of his mouth, making it seem like he's perfectly orthodox.

For example, some people quote him as saying, regarding homosexuality, I am convinced of the fundamental wisdom of the church's teaching, but they then leave out what he says next, But I do not yet fully understand how this is to be lived by young, gay Catholics who accept their sexuality and rightly long to express their affection.

Now, this can mean that he doesn't know what positive steps a person should take in spite of this difficult cross to carry, or it could mean that there is a way to express homosexual conduct that accords with some abstract fundamental principle, like love your neighbor.

Indeed, Father Radcliffe has previously disagreed with the church's policies on not allowing gay men to become priests, and he wrote an article saying that in order to understand gay people, we must do things like watch Brokeback Mountain, a film about a gay adulterous relationship between two cowboys who are married to women.

In 2013, he contributed to a report from the Church of England where he wrote the following.

How does all 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 think it can be expressive of Christ's self-gift.

End quote.

Cool, now do adultery, polyamory, which is just open adultery, masturbation, and even more disordered things like bestiality.

A person can be polite and still engage in perverted acts.

Now, in 2016, Father Radcliffe said he did not support gay marriage, claiming that, quote, My position on gay marriage is the church's.

But this is similar to what I call the Father Martin two-step, one step forward in reaffirming orthodoxy on a teaching related to homosexuality, and then two steps backwards with statements that undermine that teaching or make it confusing to the faithful.

And all this comes out in his recent article, What the Church Can Learn from LGBTQ Catholics.

First, Father Radcliffe talks about when he was invited to celebrate gay and lesbian masses in London, saying the following.

These masses are just like any others.

Gay people do not need a special liturgy.

Because so many feel rejected by the Church, they need a community in which they are sure of a warm welcome.

Sexual orientation should not be central to anyone's identity; this lies in our capacity to love and so enter into the mystery of God's boundless love.

First, when you look at video and photos of LGBT masses online, you can see that the pride flags and self-congratulations is nothing like a typical mass.

I've covered one such mass in my review of a documentary about Father James Martin that is linked in the description below.

Second, I don't know any conservative or even a more fundamentalist Catholic who would make someone feel unwelcome merely because of his internal orientations.

We know that orientations in and of themselves are not sinful, but actions are sinful, and failing to repent of sinful actions keeps us cut off from God no matter what your sexual orientation is.

Finally, this message is often hypocritical because many liberal Catholics only wanna welcome people who have socially acceptable sins, at least from the perspective of their peers in the media, government and academia.

For example, these same Catholics would be outright hysterical at the thought of a mass dedicated to celebrating the value of whiteness or European heritage that is celebrated for the purpose of being welcoming to white supremacists.

They would never say that we need to celebrate the gifts that white supremacists bring to the church while reminding people that the church prohibits racism but we must always show love towards racists.

In fact, consider this article Alice Camille wrote in 2022 called Sometimes Hate Is the Friendly Man Next Door.

The article talks about Bill, an EMT who seemed to be a stand-up guy and was about to be received in her church.

Bill then, of his own free will, sent Camille articles he wrote that she considered racist.

She writes the following.

It seemed our model parishioner-to-be was a card-carrying, neo-Nazi racist.

She said Bill was uneasy about his identity, and so she, quote, Urged Bill to denounce his writings and put them behind him.

I urged him not to approach the Easter mysteries until he had expunged the way of hate from his life.

The article then says she met Bill many years later and she recounted the experience.

I didn't see or hear from Bill for five years.

Then I accidentally ran into him on the street one day.

He saw me first and called to me.

From a safe 10 paces away, he told me he'd burned all of his hate paraphernalia: books, magazines, flags, and keepsakes.

He said he'd changed.

He said it was over.

I wanted to believe him and promised him my continued prayers, but I was too afraid to get closer and made no attempt to contact him again.

Once again, notice the hypocrisy.

Camille is also the author of an article called Even God Got Bored with the Binary, with the subtitle, Dualisms - Whether Black and White, Male and Female, or Good and Evil - Are Appealing but Often Fail to Tell the Whole Story.

And yet for Camille, there is no dualism and there is no ambiguity when it comes to racism.

According to her, racism is evil, period, end of story.

And even worse, according to her, racism is an unforgivable sin.

Even if this man Bill repented of his racism, Camille still felt it was necessary to treat him like a leper.Now, let's change the story a little bit and imagine that Bill was a transgender woman, a man claiming to be a woman, who had even written articles saying it was okay to kill so-called transphobes, but then he repented of this hatred.

I'm sure many liberal Catholics would treat Bill as a hero.

Now, they'd say, Oh, his hatred was wrong, but, you know, it's understandable given how traumatic transphobes can be.

They would not treat Bill, transgender Bill, like some kind of unredeemable monster, even though transgender people have engaged in acts of violence like the 2023 Covenant School shooter, Aiden Hale, who was born a woman, Audrey Hale, before identifying as a man.

But what's worse is that in Camille's article, she never says Bill expressed violence in his writings.

She just assumed he would be violent because of his alleged white supremacy and because some other white supremacists have been violent, but liberals would consider it a sinful act of bigotry to assume a gay person is a sexual predator merely because some gay people are sexual predators.

Liberal Catholics want to build bridges with socially acceptable sinners, and they only denounce sinners who people on The View or MSNBC like to bash, namely racists and billionaires.

That's why when I see someone going on and on about the so-called gifts of the LGBT community and using language that, in many cases, is a Trojan horse designed to change church teaching, I ask them two questions.

Number one: Are acts of racism wicked?

I let them answer, and it's usually a quick answer.

Yes, of course they're wicked.

And then I ask number two: Are acts of sodomy wicked?

They almost always refuse to answer the second question, because for many of them, deep down, they do not think sodomy is sinful or wicked.

And the questions work for the far right as well, who recently online I have seen defending outright racism.

As a Catholic, you should be able to instinctively answer yes to both questions and consider racism and sodomy both wicked.

And if you cannot do that, I'm gonna question your commitment to Catholic teaching.

All right, so back to Radcliffe's article.

He writes the following.

Sexual orientation should not be central to anyone's identity.

This lies in our capacity to love and so enter into the mystery of God's boundless love.

Cardinal Basil Hume wrote, 'Love between two persons, whether of the same sex or of a different sex, is to be treasured and respected.' While sexual orientation per se isn't a central part of our identity, being a man or a woman is a central part of that identity.

You can change my height and my weight, and I'd still be the same person.

I could even imagine being the same person but belonging to a different race, but changing my sex is as impossible as changing my species.

It is a central part of my identity, and my sex entails either natural or unnatural attractions based on what my sex is.

Human beings are not minds who happen to inhabit sexed bodies that express love merely to other minds.

That's the vibe you get from Radcliffe's quotation of Cardinal Hume's 1997 note on homosexuality.

And when I've seen the line, Love between two persons, whether of the same sex or of a different sex, is to be treasured and respected, shared on social media, this acts like a dog whistle for those who think marital sex and sodomy are morally equivalent.

But here's the full context of Cardinal Hume's quote.

He writes, The word love must never be thought of as being synonymous with the word sex.

Love can take many forms.

There is the love between parents and children, between relatives, as well as the chaste love of friendship.

Of course, for married people, their sexual relationship should be an important part of their love in whatever context it arises and always respecting the appropriate manner of its expression.

Love between two persons, whether of the same sex or of a different sex, is to be treasured and respected.

Cardinal Hume also wrote, There can be no moral right to homosexual acts, even though they are no longer held to be criminal in many secular legal systems.

No individual bishop, priest, or layperson is in a position to change the teaching of the church which she considers to be God-given.

End quote.

When Father James Martin speaks about homosexuality, he often uses language like, The church prohibits, or, The church doesn't allow homosexual acts, which leaves open the possibility the church could change this teaching.

Father Martin doesn't say what Cardinal Hume says, that the teaching on homosexuality comes from God Himself.

In fact, in my recently released book, Confusion in the Kingdom, I wrote the following.

Whereas Father Martin believes that all acts of racism are wicked, he does not believe that sodomy is wicked.

I will eat this page of my book if Father Martin corrects me and is willing to publicly say all sexual acts between people of the same sex are wicked.

Following the cardinal's reasoning, when people ask me, Why can't two people love each other?

I respond that I have never said two people cannot love each other.

When married people express love, 99.9% of the time, sex is not part of that expression.

But for their union, sex is the fullest way to express marital love, because sex is just that one flesh union that consummates their marital relationship.

That's why I really cannot stand this line from Father Radcliffe.

My intuition is that most gay Catholics in mature, committed relationships usually move beyond much interest in sex anyway.

What they seek most of all are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

There is no law against such things.

Now, if same-sex couples want to pursue these goods, they certainly can through the good of friendship, not a committed romantic relationship.

Commitment is only needed in marriage precisely because of the children that proceed from the sexual union, the marital act that bonds marriages together and makes them marriage and not any other kind of relationship.

Saying sex is something mature, committed relationships avoid or don't seek after does not elevate same-sex pairings.

It devalues real marriages and the uniqueness of their one flesh bond.

Finally, Father Radcliffe writes, The welcome of gay people is seen in some parts of the church as evidence of Western decadence, but the church must fight for the lives and dignity of gay people who are still liable to capital punishment in 10 countries and criminal prosecution in 70.

They have the right to live.Now, I agree that people who identify as LGBTQ should not suffer from violence or unjust discrimination.

They should be treated with dignity.

And I agree with the church's teaching that the death penalty is inadmissible.

But what Father Radcliffe writes here gives the impression that the threat to people who identify as gay comes from places where the church can advocate for them.

In reality, the vast majority of countries where it is illegal to practice homosexuality, it's also illegal in those countries to fully practice Christianity, because these are Muslim theocracies.

Oh, and if you bring up Uganda supposedly giving the death penalty for homosexuality, the text in their law says it is for so-called aggravated homosexuality, which is defined as the homosexual rape of minors and other people who cannot consent to sexual activity.

So, if Father Radcliffe were honest, he'd say the best way the church can work for the rights of people with same-sex attraction is to work for the conversion of Muslims who violently persecute them.

Finally, what do I think of Pope Francis selecting him to be a cardinal?

You know, the only thing that makes me feel better is that in less than a year, Father Radcliffe will be 80 and he'll be too old to vote in the next conclave.

And Pope Francis has selected a lot of solid cardinals from all over the world, including in Africa, Asia, and Oceania, where they tend to be more conservative.

The truth is, we have no idea what the next pope will be like.

John Paul II and Benedict's selections of cardinals gave us Pope Francis.

And Cardinal Fernandez, in spite of controversy surrounding him, has recently reaffirmed that there is, quote, no room for ordained Catholic women deacons.

All we can do is pray for the church and its leaders and trust that God is in control.

However, in our own conversations, we can engage rhetoric like that from Father Radcliffe and show how detrimental it is to the church's witness and encourage other people to not take part in it.

And if you'd like to learn more about how to do that, please pick up a copy of my new book, Confusion in the Kingdom: How Progressive Catholicism Is Bringing Harm and Scandal to the Church.

Thank you so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.