Fr. Radcliffe says article linking same-sex ‘blessings’ rejection to foreign money was ‘misinterpreted’

VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal-elect Timothy Radcliffe has publicly attested that he did not mean to suggest that “positions taken by the Catholic Church in Africa were influenced by financial considerations” following a public controversy over an article he wrote linking Africa’s Fiducia Supplicans response to foreign money.

In a statement issued to the press on October 23, Cardinal-elect Radcliffe, O.P., weighed in personally on a controversy which has blown up regarding an article of his which appeared October 12 in the Vatican’s daily newspaper – L’Osservatore Romano.

Radcliffe’s article was first published by the Tablet in April, and the L’Osservatore Romano article was highlighted by veteran Catholic journalist Phil Lawler in Catholic Culture on October 17.

But today, Radcliffe sought to distance himself from the interpretation of his words which, as written, appear to link the Catholic bishops’ rejection of same-sex blessings in Africa to the influence of American, Russian, and Muslim money.

READ: Cardinal-elect Radcliffe blames ‘Russian money’ for African bishops rejecting homosexual ‘blessings’

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo – president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) – had led most of the African bishops in rejecting Fiducia Supplicans in January, and added in April that the document had been “buried” in Africa.

Questioned by this correspondent yesterday, Ambongo replied that Radcliffe denied authoring the article and that Radcliffe was “shocked that such things may have been written and attributed to him.”

NEW: I asked Cardinal Ambongo about Fr Radcliffe’s comments.
Ambongo said Radcliffe “read the article only yesterday (Oct 21) & he is shocked that such things may have been written & attributed to him.”

He suggests Radcliffe didn’t write the article, tho it has his name on it https://t.co/zBzdHgrMMb pic.twitter.com/NhodoueV5m

— Michael Haynes (@MLJHaynes) October 22, 2024

In his own statement today, Radcliffe made a clarification, not denying that he authored the article but attesting that Lawler’s “reading” of the article “misinterpreted what I had written.”

Radcliffe’s full statement is reproduced below:

In response to reports following Cardinal Ambongo’s response to a question at the press conference of 22 October, Cardinal-elect Timothy Radcliffe OP wishes to make the following points clear.

1. Cardinal Ambongo’s reply did not refer to the article published in L’Osservatore Romano, but one by Phil Lawler in Catholic Culture of 17 October. This was the article the cardinal showed me on his phone and which we discussed.
2. Lawler’s reading of the Osservatore article misinterpreted what I had written. I never wrote or suggested that positions taken by the Catholic Church in Africa were “influenced by financial considerations.” I was acknowledging only that the Catholic Church in Africa is under tremendous pressure from other religions and church which are well funded by outside sources.
3. I am most grateful to Cardinal Ambongo for his clear defence of my position.

Radcliffe’s statement appears to implicitly accept that the original article was indeed authored by him, but that the meaning which many have taken from it is not the one he intended.

The relevant passages from Radcliffe’s article, produced below, suggest that Lawler’s reading – dubbed by Radcliffe as a “misinterpretation” – appears to be an accurate understanding of the text.

The original article reads:

How can we reconcile the two imperatives of Francis’ papacy: to be outward-looking to take the Gospel to the ends of the world, to all cultures, and to be open to all human beings, whatever their condition and whoever they are? The dilemma exploded with the Fiducia Supplicans, the statement by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith granting priests permission, especially in very specific situations, to bless couples in “irregular” relationships, including same-sex couples. Cardinal Ambongo went to Rome to present the firm rejection of the proposal by the bishops of Africa. Never before had all the bishops of a continent repudiated a Vatican document. Every attempt was made to placate the crisis.

The pope had approved the declaration. Cardinal Ambongo confirmed that African exceptionalism is an example of synodality. And he pointed out that unity does not mean uniformity. The Gospel is inculturated differently in different parts of the world.

But this raises more complex issues than that. True, the Gospel is always inculturated in different cultures, but it also challenges every culture. Jesus was Jewish, yet he challenged the religion of his ancestors. Is the refusal to bless gays in Africa an example of enculturation or a refusal to be nonconformist? Inculturation for one person is another person’s rejection of the nonconformist gospel.

Another fear raised by the Fiducia Supplicans is that there seems to have been no consultation-even with bishops or other Vatican offices-before its release; not exactly, perhaps, a good example of synodality. The African bishops are under heavy pressure from evangelicals, with American money; from Russian Orthodox, with Russian money; and from Muslims, with money from rich Gulf countries. There should have been a discussion with them before, not after, the publication of the statement. Whatever we think about the declaration, at the time of facing tensions, and to overcome them, we all have to think and involve ourselves with each other at a deep level.

Radcliffe is known for his championing of LGBT causes, being a longtime celebrant for the “LGBT Masses” held in London, as well as an advocate for admitting men with homosexual tendencies to the priesthood.

While contributing to the 2013 Anglican report on human sexual ethics, Radcliffe famously argued that homosexuality was 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.”

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.

During the 2023 and 2024 Synod on Synodality sessions he has served as one of the spiritual advisors to the meetings.

Full coverage of the Synod on Synodality can be found at this link here on LifeSiteNews, and on the X account of LifeSite’s Vatican correspondent.