(ZENIT News / Rome, 23.10.2024).- Timothy Radcliffe, Dominican Religious, has been appointed Cardinal by Pope Francis. He will receive the Cardinal’s hat in the Consistory this coming December 7. However, he requested the Holy Father to exempt him from wearing a Cardinal’s clothing.
Radcliffe was Mater of the Order of Preachers between 1992 and 2001. Previously he was the Director of the Las Casas Institute in Blackfriars, Oxford, center for the promotion of social justice and human rights. He was born in London in 1945, studied at Worth Preparatory School in Sussex and at Saint John’s College, Oxford. He entered the Dominican Order in 1965 and was ordained priest in 1971. He is Spiritual Assistant in the current Synod on Synodality and directed the Spiritual Retreat in Ariccia, Italy, in preparation for the Second Session of the Synod on Synodality.
In an interview with the BBC on October 13, he said he requested the Pope to dispense him from wearing a Cardinal’s red clothing and allow him to keep his habit of the Order of Preachers.
In the interview, the English priest explained that he wished to wear his religious habit without the “elaborate Cardinal’s tunic.” Radcliffe commented that the Holy Father expressed “full understanding” and that he would “free him from using such elaborate clothing.”
The Cardinals’ clothing is a purple-red cassock, a white roquette, a wool cover, a skullcap and a red sash. The color symbolizes martyrdom, as Cardinals are called to give the greatest service to the Church, including with their life.
Father Radcliffe has sparked controversy for his support of relations between same-sex individuals and some positions promoting the LGBTI ideology.
In an article published in L’Osservatore Romano on September 19, he said that homosexual “desires” are “given by God and need to be “educated” instead of being repressed. “The teaching of the Church is already evolving, renewed by the experience lived: homosexuals are no longer seen in terms of sexual acts, but as our brothers and sisters that, according to Pope Francis, can be blessed.”
Father Radcliffe has been criticized in his own Order for another article published in The Tablet, titled “Can Gays Be Priests?” — although it is always advisable to specify some phrases of his position. His relevant presence in the Synod and appointment as Cardinal, contrasts with those who hold more traditional positions.
