Controversial clerics ramp up rhetoric on issues of sexuality in the run up to October
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Pope Francis has appointed an excommunicated bishop and high-profile pro-LGBTQ+ priests for the second phase of October's Synod on Synodality, raising concerns as to the positions of the participants on hot-button issues of sexuality and Church governance.
Father Timothy Radcliffe, who has been handpicked by the pontiff as one of the two preachers of the retreat preceding the Synod, paid tribute to "mature homosexual Catholics" in "committed relationships" in an article for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.
"Our desires are given by God," Radcliffe wrote in a Sept. 19 article, insisting that homosexuals "rightly desire to express their affection," but "this cannot happen only through the denial of desire."
"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," the Dominican friar added.
The former head of the Dominican Order argued that Church doctrine has evolved and has been renewed by "lived experience." He concluded: "Homosexuals are no longer seen only in terms of sexual acts, but as our brothers and sisters who can be blessed according to Pope Francis."
Radcliffe, who is one of the spiritual companions for those participating in the Synod, was invited by Pope Francis to lead a retreat for bishops before the start of a Synod on Synodality meeting last year despite his promotion of the LGBT+ agenda.
In a lecture titled "LGBT+ Catholics in a Synodal Church" delivered in May, Radcliffe hailed the pontiff's declaration, Fiducia supplicans, permitting same-sex blessings by priests in specific situations, noting "Pope Francis stressed that we all need to be blessed as we seek to find our way forward in love."
Observing that prelates in African countries were disturbed by the declaration, the pro-gay Dominican said: "Unity does not mean uniformity. The gospel is enculturated differently in different parts of the world."
The notorious pro-LGBTQ Jesuit propagandist Fr. James Martin will also play a leading role in the synodal discussions. Martin, a confidant of Pope Francis, has been repeatedly affirmed in his LGBTQ "ministry" by the pontiff, including by several handwritten letters from Francis which have been widely publicized by Martin on social media.
In an article last week discussing his role as an ambassador for the LGBTQ community at the synod, Martin challenges the views he heard from orthodox participants, particularly Africans, at the 2023 Synod refuting the LGBTQ agenda.
"Interestingly, during the synod, the call for opening up the discussion about polygamy, raised by several African delegates, was welcomed more warmly than the question of same-sex couples, even though it could be seen as a similar outreach: to a group of Catholics whose lives do not fully conform with Church teaching," writes Martin.
"Unlike LGBTQ issues, it was also part of the most recent Instrumentum Laboris, which spoke of the need to 'discern the theological and pastoral issues of polygamy for the Church in Africa,'" Martin adds.
Bishop Vincenzo Zhan Silu, a controversial Chinese prelate who was excommunicated by the Vatican after being unilaterally appointed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and ordained bishop without papal consent, has also been invited to participate in the Synod.
As a high-profile member of the government-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), his contested role within the Church hierarchy has been seen by some as subordinating the Catholic Church to the interests of the Chinese state.
Pope Francis lifted Zhan's excommunication in 2018 as part of the secret accord between the Vatican and China, which the Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin hopes will be renewed for a third time when it expires later this year.
Observers have questioned whether Zhan's participation in the October Synod is a result of pressure put on the Vatican by the CCP, and whether such participation is a tacit approval of an increasing decentralization of the Roman Catholic Church to give way to a "Synodal Church" which will be governed at the national level by bishops' conferences.
Synod members are poised to debate if national episcopal conferences should become canonically recognized "ecclesial subjects endowed with doctrinal authority;" as in Anglican or Lutheran structures, capable of making liturgical, disciplinary and theological decisions.
Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.