(LifeSiteNews) — The prominent pro-LGBT priest Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, O.P., has said that women who are supposedly oppressed by a “patriarchy” led by “old white men” should be placed “in the center” of the Church.
During a pre-Synod retreat on October 1, Radcliffe stated, “we must remember all those who do not yet feel at home in the Church: women who feel that they are unrecognised in a patriarchy of old white men like me!”
“People who feel that the Church is too Western, too Latin, too colonial,” he continued. “We must journey towards a Church in which they are no longer at the margin but in the center.”
Radcliffe was invited by Pope Francis to lead a three-day retreat for bishops prior to the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican.
READ: Pope invites notorious pro-LGBT priest to lead key Synod retreat for bishops
The Dominican priest claimed that “different understandings of the Church as home tear us apart today.”
“For some it is defined by its ancient traditions and devotions, its inherited structures and language, the Church we have grown up with and love. It gives us a clear Christian identity,” Radcliffe said.
“For others, the present Church does not seem to be a safe home. It is experienced as exclusive, marginalizing many people, women, the divorced and remarried. For some it is too Western, too Eurocentric.“
In the past, the heterodox Dominican has advocated for allowing adulterers who are civilly “remarried” to receive Holy Communion in contradiction to Church teaching, referring to Catholic doctrine as “the tyranny of tradition at the exclusion of creativity.”
Radcliffe’s comments regarding the so-called oppression of women in the Church come amid calls of high-ranking clergymen, especially those from the German-speaking countries, to ordain women to the priesthood.
However, the Church has always taught that only men can be ordained as priests and offer to God the Sacrifice of the Mass in persona Christi.
Pope John Paul II affirmed this teaching in his 1994 apostolic letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis: “The Declaration recalls and explains the fundamental reasons for this teaching, reasons expounded by Paul VI, and concludes that the Church ‘does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination.’”
In the same document, John Paul II also refutes the notion that excluding women from Holy Orders is oppressive:
Furthermore, the fact that the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church, received neither the mission proper to the Apostles nor the ministerial priesthood clearly shows that the non-admission of women to priestly ordination cannot mean that women are of lesser dignity, nor can it be construed as discrimination against them. Rather, it is to be seen as the faithful observance of a plan to be ascribed to the wisdom of the Lord of the universe.
Radcliffe pushes affirmation of ‘gay people’ and ‘people in polygamous marriages’
The 78-year-old Dominican priest cited the heterodox Instrumentum Laboris (working document) of the Synod, which addresses the supposed need to “welcome” the “remarried divorcees, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+ people.”
“The IL [Instrumentum Laboris] mentions also gay people and people in polygamous marriages,” Radcliffe said in his keynote. “They long for a renewed Church in which they will feel fully at home, recognized, affirmed and safe.”
He furthermore cited the openly homosexual former Dominican priest James Alison, who stated that “God is among us as one cast out.”
The Catholic Church has always held that homosexual acts are gravely sinful and considers sodomy among the “sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity (Cf. Genesis 19:1-29; Romans 1:24-27; 1 Corinthians 6:10; 1 Timothy 1:10), tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Persona humana, 8). They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (CCC 2357.)
Fr. Radcliffe’s heterodox positions are well-documented
Radcliffe was master of the Dominican Order from 1992 to 2001, but his name is arguably more notorious for his prominent and persistent promotion of LGBT ideology in contradiction of Catholic teaching.
Shortly before the Vatican issued its 2005 document reaffirming the ban on admitting men with “homosexual tendencies” into seminaries, Radcliffe publicly objected to the predicted ban. Writing in The 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.”
Then, in an article for dissident U.K. publication The Tablet, he 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.”
In 2012, Radcliffe wrote an article in The Tablet reiterating the Church’s teaching that same-sex “marriage” is impossible, but adding, “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.”
Subsequently, while contributing to the 2013 Anglican report on human sexual ethics, Radcliffe blasphemously argued that homosexuality is to be understood in light of Christ’s gift of Himself in the Eucharist. He stated 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.”
Radcliffe added:
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.
Expressing this stance, Radcliffe was one of the regular celebrants for LGBT Masses held in London, the notorious “Soho Masses.”
Despite this, Pope Francis appointed Radcliffe as a consultor for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace in 2015.
READ: Vatican appointee says gay sex can express Christ’s ‘self-gift’