ROME — The woke Dominican friar chosen by Pope Francis to open the Vatican Synod began his reflections Sunday by confessing, “I am old, white, a Westerner, and a man! I don’t know which is worse.”
“All of these aspects of my identity limit my understanding,” said 78-year-old Father Timothy Radcliffe, a leader of the Church’s progressive wing for decades. “So I ask for your forgiveness for the inadequacy of my words.”
Preaching to the pope, the assembled bishops, and the other participants in the synod, the former head of the Dominican order described what he sees as the dismal state of the world due to climate change and immigration, as well as humanity’s need for hope.
“The future looks grim,” he declared. “Ecological catastrophe threatens the destruction of our home. Wildfires and floods have devoured the world this summer. Small islands begin to disappear under the sea.”
“Millions of people are on the road fleeing from poverty and violence,” he continued. “Hundreds have drowned in the Mediterranean not far from here.”
“Many parents refuse to bring children into a world that appears doomed,” he said. “In China, young people wear T-shirts saying, ‘We are the last generation.’”
The preacher went on to suggest that in the face of the divine, where one stands on doctrinal matters is of little importance.
“If we are truly on the way to the Kingdom, does it really matter whether you align yourselves with so-called traditionalists or progressives?” he asked rhetorically.
Father Radcliffe has been a vocal supporter of progressive causes for decades, often lending his voice to the lobby to rehabilitate gay sex, making him a darling of the LGBT community.
In a 2006 address to the Los Angeles Religious Education Conference, Radcliffe called on the Church to “stand with” gay people.
“We must accompany them as they discern what this means, letting our images be stretched open,” he exhorted. “This means watching ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ reading gay novels, living with our gay friends and listening with them as they listen to the Lord.”
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