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Fr, Timothy Radcliffe OP, speaking at the Vatican October 27, 2023.Michael Haynes/LifeSiteNews

(LifeSiteNews) — Father Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., whom Pope Francis named a spiritual assistant for the October session of the Synod on Synodality, penned an article for the Vatican newspaper in which he appears to defend homosexual “desire” and claims that homosexual individuals “rightly desire to express their affection” in contradiction to Catholic teaching.

“I am convinced of the fundamental wisdom of the Church’s teaching, but I still do not fully understand how it should be lived by young” so-called “gay Catholics who accept their sexuality and rightly desire to express their affection,” wrote Radcliffe, who is notorious for his promotion of LGBT ideology, in a September 19 L’osservatore Romano article. 

READ: Cardinal Sarah strongly rejects Fiducia Supplicans, ‘heresy’ of same-sex ‘blessings’

“This cannot happen only through the denial of desire,” wrote Radcliffe, attempting to use St. Thomas Aquinas to justify his remarks. “For St. Thomas Aquinas, our passions are the driving force of our return to God.”  

“Our desires are given by God,” the 79-year-old Dominican continued, without clarifying that desires for sin, such as for homosexual relations, are not given by God, but are the result of original sin.

Homosexual desires are “objectively disordered” – evil in and of themselves – and contrary to nature, as the Catholic Church teaches and natural law attests.

“Desires need to be educated, purified and freed from an illusory fantasy, but in all desires there is a desire for what is good and for God. The commandments are not given to deny our desires, but to direct them toward their true end,” he claimed, without explaining the true end of sexuality: procreation, designed by God to take place within marriage between a man and a woman.

READ: Pope Francis urges Ugandan LGBT activist to ‘keep fighting for your rights’

Radcliffe went on to allege that Church teaching is “developing” and cited Pope Francis’ approval of “blessings” for homosexual “couples” in Fiducia Supplicans.

Radcliffe also misused Scripture to support the false and outrageous claim that those engaging in homosexual acts seek fruits of the Holy Spirit, such as “love” and “self-control.”

Radcliffe at one point praised so-called “mature gay Catholics” in “committed relationships.”

On the contrary, the Catholic Church has always taught that homosexual activity is “grave depravity,” mortal sin, and intrinsically disordered in accordance with Sacred Scripture, the constant Tradition of the Church, and the natural law.

Further, as canonist and author Father Gerald Murray has noted, the Church doesn’t define people as “homosexual” but recognizes that God creates all people to be attracted to the opposite sex. “You have heterosexual people who engage in deviant behavior. This is sexual immorality,” Fr. Murray has said about homosexuality. 

READ: Vatican synod website celebrates homosexuality and child adoption by homosexuals

Radcliffe was invited by Francis to lead a retreat for bishops before the start of a Synod on Synodality meeting last year despite his consistent promotion of LGBT ideology in contradiction of Catholic teaching.

Radcliffe has encouraged Catholics to “accompany” homosexuals, including by watching pornographic homosexual content such as the film “Brokeback Mountain.”

“We must accompany (homosexual individuals) as they discern what this means, letting our images be stretched open,” he said in a 2006 “religious education” lecture in Los Angeles. “This means watching ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ reading gay novels, living with our gay friends and listening with them as they listen to the Lord.”

Radcliffe even defended “gay sexuality” in a blasphemous statement in a 2013 Anglican report on human sexual ethics. 

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