Synod Spiritual Adviser in Vatican Newspaper: Same-Sex Desire was Created by God!

‘Fr.’ Timothy Radcliffe prepping for the Synod…

Synod Spiritual Adviser in Vatican Newspaper: Same-Sex Desire was Created by God!

L’Osservatore Romano (‘The Roman Observer’) is the Vatican’s own in-house newspaper, currently under the editorship of Andrea Monda, who was appointed by ‘Pope’ Francis in 2018. The paper is published daily in Italian and less frequently in other languages. A weekly English edition has been issued since 1968.

The Italian edition of Sep. 19, 2024, contains a brief article by the Rev. Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. (pictured above). It is entitled “Portatori del Vangelo gli uni per gli altri” (‘Bearers of the Gospel for one another’) and printed on page 6 under the Zona Franca rubric. It has also been published on the paper’s web site, though it is mercifully behind a paywall.

“On the synodal path with gay Catholics” is the article’s tagline, giving the reader a preview of what he’s about to be subjected to. No doubt the 79-year-old ‘Fr.’ Radcliffe has sterling credentials as far as the “synodal path” goes and certainly also in “gay” topics, though he is lacking a bit with regard to that “Catholic” aspect, as we will now see.

“Sexual orientation should not be the focus of anyone’s identity”, the Modernist friar from England writes, adding: “It lies in our ability to love and thus to enter into the mystery of God’s boundless love” (translation via DeepL.com, here and hereafter).

What may sound fairly innocuous at first to many, is actually quite problematic. While Radcliffe is ostensibly rejecting the notion of a ‘homosexual identity’, he is tacitly accepting the concept of sexual orientation in the sense in which it is typically understood in our day. With that flawed premise, erroneous conclusions are ultimately inevitable. We’ll explain further in a moment.

Radcliffe speaks about “our ability to love” but without distinguishing the different kinds and qualities of love. He also does not explain just what he means by “enter[ing] into the mystery of God’s boundless love”, which could mean any number of things.

The English friar then quotes the late ‘Cardinal’ Basil Hume (1923-1999):

Cardinal Basil Hume wrote, “Love between two people, whether same-sex or different-sex, should be cherished and respected. “Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus,” we read (John 11:5). When two people love, they experience in a limited way, in this world, what will be their infinite joy when they are together with God in the hereafter. To love another is in fact to reach out to God, who shares his loveliness with the person we love.”

At least by now it would have been absolutely necessary for the Rev. Radcliffe to explain the different kinds of love — brotherly love, Platonic love, conjugal love between spouses, etc. Given that he’s writing in the context of people who publicly identify themselves as “gay Catholics”, and given the depraved affections and acts those who carry that label proudly typically consent to and engage in, the friar’s approvingly-quoted words of ‘Cardinal’ Hume are suggestive of abominable blasphemy.

The Dominican continues: “The challenge, for gay people as for everyone, is to learn how to express love appropriately, respecting the dignity of the other as a child of God.” This too may sound fine at first; however, implicit in this statement is the mistaken idea that the “love” (again, what kind?) had for a member of the same sex is not wrong (disordered) in itself, only in how it is expressed.

Obviously the pure love of friendship between brothers, which implies nothing romantic or erotic in any way but in fact excludes such, is perfectly fine; but with regard to perverted, unnatural ‘love’, the trouble is not simply its external expression but the disordered attraction itself: St. Paul speaks of “shameful affections” and a “reprobate sense” (Rom 1:26,28), among other things.

Further, notice how Radcliffe takes as the standard to follow in this regard respect for “the dignity of the other as a child of God”, whereas the real standard must always be the law of God. Some may consider this a distinction without a difference, or needless nitpicking, but we should not forget that people like this Modernist Dominican use vague and ambiguous language for a reason. Equivocation is one of their favorite tools, and it is very dangerous in philosophy and theology and will often have horrendous consequences, even when such are unintended.

That Rev. Radcliffe pays lip service to official Novus Ordo doctrine but adds: “I am convinced of the fundamental wisdom of the Church’s teaching, but I still do not fully understand how it should be lived out by young gay Catholics who accept their sexuality and rightly wish to express their affection.”

And there we go! Now we have proof that the same-sex ‘love’ he referred to earlier under the cover of ambiguity is an erotic type of affection that is in itself a grave disorder contrary to the natural law.

To be clear: Merely experiencing same-sex attraction is not sinful — sin is an act of the will, not a feeling. What is sinful is consenting to it, approving of it, acting on it, and claiming that such attraction is normal, legitimate, or healthy, or even constitutive of one’s very identity. It’s sinful because sexual attraction exists for sexual acts, which of their very nature are conducive to the generation of offspring. In other words, the primary purpose of sexuality is procreation, and that is something that is intrinsically frustrated in acts between members of the same sex. Such acts are incapable of begetting children, not simply by circumstance but of their very nature.

Unnatural acts are, in the truest sense of the word, a perversion, meaning a turning away from the proper end (the Latin pervertere literally means “to turn to ill effect”). They are an abuse of the faculties God gave to man so he could produce offspring. As one moral theologian puts it: “The malice of sodomy consists in the perverted affection towards the wrong sex or in the attraction towards the wrong method of sexual gratification” (Rev. Heribert Jone, Moral Theology [Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1962], n. 230.2; italic and bold print given).

For Radcliffe to speak of “gay Catholics who accept their sexuality” is actually blasphemous because it implies that there is “a sexuality” that is proper to them (to wit, homosexuality); and of course that would imply that God makes some people heterosexual and others homosexual and that both “sexualities” are in themselves good and perhaps even equal in value, which is a blasphemy. And yet that appears to be the very idea underlying Radcliffe’s thought, which is why he can say that homosexuals “rightly wish to express their affection”.

Next, the English Modernist in a Dominican habit dishes up a bunch of half-truths:

This cannot be done only through the denial of desire. For St. Thomas Aquinas, our passions are the driving force behind our return to God. Our desires are given by God. Desires need to be educated, purified and freed from 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 to their true end. They are the gateway to freedom. Israel was given the Ten Commandments to form him to friendship with God and ultimately with the One who said to his disciples, “I have called you friends.”

There is nothing wrong, in itself, with sexual desire. It has a purpose, after all, primarily that of procreation, to which all other purposes must be subordinated: “And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth” (Gen 1:27-28).

This isn’t rocket science. Sexual desire as such is good and was created by God for the propagation of the human race. The state in which it is lawfully gratified is called marriage, a natural institution upon which the Son of God conferred a supernatural dignity by raising it to the status of a grace-giving sacrament for the baptized!

The legitimacy of sexual desire as such is cunningly undermined, however, by introducing the notion of multipolar sexual orientation — the idea that God creates people in such a way that their sexuality is directed either to a member of the opposite sex (heterosexual) or to a member of the same sex (homosexual). By accepting this error as a given truth, Radcliffe is bound to end up in absurdity, for it then follows that both orientations must be good in themselves, even if both types of sexual desire must still be “educated”, “purified”, etc.

But if both are good in themselves, then both have a proper end that involves the use of the human generative faculties. But these exist ultimately only for the primary purpose of having and raising children in lawful wedlock, much like our appetite for food and the organs associated with eating and digesting exist ultimately for bodily nourishment for the sake of physical survival. Now obviously only the sexuality that is directed to a member of the opposite sex is open to achieving procreation of its very nature, whereas the other kind will necessarily frustrate that end, not merely by circumstance but of its very nature.

Thus is explained the dead end into which the Dominican Modernist has maneuvered himself because he has accepted as true the lie that God created some people with a same-sex sexuality.

Radcliffe’s perverted theology continues:

Through conversation with mature gay Catholics who have experienced the journey to serenity and happiness, we will better discover how this desire can be made holy. The synodal way is to talk “with” people, not just “about” them. “Reality is more important than the idea” (Evangelii gaudium, 231). The Church’s teaching is already developing as it is refreshed by lived experience: gay people are no longer seen only in terms of sexual acts, but as our brothers and sisters who, according to Pope Francis, can be blessed.

One can only be horrified at this frightening nonsense. A romantic-sexual desire that is directed at someone of the same sex is in itself evil (disordered) and as such can never be made holy! Radcliffe is trying to ‘baptize’ homosexual ‘love’, and look at how he goes about doing it! He even taps into Francis’ teaching that “reality is more important than the idea”, an idiotic statement that is self-refuting since it is merely an idea itself!

But speaking of reality, it is amusingly ironic that Austrian psychiatrist Dr. Rudolf Allers (1883-1963), who taught psychology at the Catholic University of America, once wrote: “Homosexuality is always a phenomenon of a generally abnormal personality poorly adapted to reality” (Sex Psychology [Fort Collins, CO: Roman Catholic Books, 2006], p. 163; imprimatur 1937).

By “reality” both Francis and Radcliffe basically mean the “lived experience” of sinners sinning — never, of course, the objective reality of the created order, for example — and these two clowns think that is a legitimate way to “develop” Church teaching! The Novus Ordo Sect is an infernal theological madhouse! Radcliffe’s oh-so profound theologizing here is simply the latest variation of what Pope Pius XII denounced as “ethical existentialism” long ago.

The English friar isn’t done yet, though:

My hunch is that most gay Catholics in mature, committed relationships usually go beyond much interest in sex. What they seek above all are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, meekness and self-control. There is no law against these things” (Galatians, 5:22f).

Frankly, a “hunch” about what might be the case has no relevance in theology, and certainly not if coming from someone who thinks that “mature, committed relationships” among members of the same sex can be lawful, when the mere deliberate consent to a depraved affection is already mortally sinful, even when it concerns someone of the opposite sex: “But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28).

Obviously, people who are attracted to members of the same sex are very much allowed (and encouraged!) to seek “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, meekness and self-control”, but not, of course, within the context of same-sex attraction, which is an evil. “Woe to you that call evil good, and good evil: that put darkness for light, and light for darkness: that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter” (Is 5:20).

Now we know why Rev. Radcliffe was appointed by ‘Pope’ Francis to lead the pre-synod retreat last year, and why he will once again be spiritually accompanying the infernal Synod on Synodality this year as well. He is a man after Francis’ heart and giving greater voice to ideas that have been in vogue in the Vatican and also in Germany in recent years. Here is a sampling:

• Francis Says Homo Couples Are ‘Two People Who Love Each Other’ (2024)
• ‘Love Is Never Wrong’: Vatican Scrambles to Defend Homo Couple Blessings (2023)
• Apostate German Novus Ordo Bishop: “Homosexuality is willed by God” (2022)
• Archlayman of Munich: Nothing Wrong with Sodomy! (2022)
• Comedy Hour at Vatican Abuse Summit: Homosexuality isn’t “Something that really Predisposes to Sin” (2019)
• Francis tells Homosexual: “God made you like that” (2018)

Radcliffe has been known as a supporter of homosexuality for a while. In an article published on Jan. 23, 2023, the English Modernist rag The Tablet put it this way: “In 2015, [Radcliffe] was appointed as a consulter to the then Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and is known for his pastorally sensitive approach to gay and lesbian Catholics, including support for same-sex civil unions.”

Indeed, the so-called National Catholic Reporter wrote about the English Dominican giving a lecture in Los Angeles over 18 years go, as follows:

On the subject of the church and homosexuality, Radcliffe called for the church to “stand with” gay people.

“We must accompany them as they discern what this means, letting our images be stretched open,” he said. “This means watching ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ reading gay novels, living with our gay friends and listening with them as they listen to the Lord.”

Even when we feel that gay people are moving in the wrong direction, he said, we must “walk with them.”

(John L. Allen, Jr., “The Word from Rome”, National Catholic Reporter, Apr. 7, 2006)

Did you get that? According to ‘Fr.’ Radcliffe, you’re supposed to expose yourself to sexual filth — specifically the unnatural kind — out of compassion for, or solidarity with, sodomites. Because “walking together” and all that.

In 2015, the Dominican Modernist said that homosexuals should not be banned from the priesthood; instead, “homophobes” should be. That is reminiscent of the Mexican Novus Ordo bishop José Raúl Vera López, also a Dominican. In 2013, he claimed that people who oppose homosexuality aren’t right in the head. Talk about insanity!

It should comes as no surprise that Radcliffe values “creativity” over Tradition, and in 2012 he wrote that “committed love of people of the same sex … 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” (The Tablet, Mar. 10, 2012, p. 4). Clearly, a pattern is emerging!

Alas, there is more to report about Radcliffe, and we’ve saved the worst for last. Some things are so awful and disgusting that one does not really know how to expose them in a modest way. Therefore, please receive our apologies in advance — we have no choice but to quote the actual words of this shameful Dominican. Prepare yourself for some sickening blasphemous ideas!

The ideas are presented in an Anglican publication known informally as the “Pilling Report” (full text here). In 2013 Radcliffe had participated in a ecumenical working group on human sexuality, and the report summarizes what was discussed. In article n. 258, the publication relates that “Fr Radcliffe proposed a Eucharistic sexual ethic that started with Jesus’s gift of his body at the Last Supper”. For Radcliffe, “sexual intercourse [is] ‘mutual generosity’ – the complete gift of the body to the other person” (n. 259).

But then the disgraceful theologian gets into homosexuality. The following words are given in quotation marks, meaning they were uttered verbatim by “Fr.” Radcliffe:

‘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.’

(Timothy Radcliffe, quoted in Report of the House of Bishops: Working Group on Human Sexuality [London: Church House Publishing, 2013], p. 77, n. 266.)

Words simply fail in the face of such wickedness! It is anyone’s guess as to what goes on behind the Modernist forehead of this Dominican monster, but it has nothing to do with Catholicism!

The sort of ‘Catholic theology’ now published in the Vatican’s own daily paper was once restricted to the writings of people considered dissidents even by the Vatican II Church. We notice that Radcliffe’s garbage was published in the Zona Franca rubric of the Osservatore Romano, apparently a sort of ‘risk-free’ area of the paper in which one can, it seems, candidly say whatever one wishes, as long as it’s not Catholic.

The English friar was only too happy to use this “safe space” for the promotion of his perverted theology — just in time for the Synod!

Image sources: YouTube (screenshot) / Osservatore Romano (screenshot)
Licenses: fair use / fair use