Fr. Radcliffe: If Church Loves LGBTQ+ People, Evolution Will Happen
Bondings 2.0 writers Robert Shine and Francis DeBernardo are in Rome for the month of October covering the first global assembly of the Synod on Synodality, particularly LGBTQ-related developments. For the blog’s full coverage of this multi-year synodal journey, click here.
REPORTING FROM ROME—As the Synod on Synodality’s first General Assembly concludes this weekend, with its synthesis report expected later today, one participant offered final thoughts on whether and how church teaching on LGBTQ+ issues might change.
Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, OP, appointed by Pope Francis as a spiritual assistant to the assembly, spoke to The Tablet’s Christopher Lamb on a podcast about church reform. Lamb noted that Radcliffe’s series of meditations were “one of the highlights” of this month’s gathering.
In one meditation, the English Dominican referenced a delegate’s intervention about a young bisexual woman who died by suicide. Radcliffe said he and others had wept, and he “hoped it changed us.” During the podcast episode, Lamb asked Radcliffe about that moment and his thoughts about how LGBTQ+ inclusion was part of the synodal process.
Radcliffe responded by citing an encounter with people in poverty that the papal almoner, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, once had. Krajewski asked them what they seek from the church, and the response was “to be loved.” Radcliffe continued:
“I think it is exactly the same with the LGBTQ community. The question that’s posed is: ‘Is the church’s teaching going to change?’ That’s not the issue. The issue is will we love and welcome our fellow human beings. If we love them and listen to them and make them part of our lives, if there are evolutions to happen, they will happen.
“But you don’t start off by asking what changes have to be made. There are important questions to be asked about can teaching evolve, does it alter? We always have to think in terms of the development of doctrine, but it’s only going to happen in any good, sane, and healthy Catholic way if it springs out of love.
“It’s very interesting reading the media reactions. So often everything that’s said is seen in terms of whose side are you on, what are you promoting. So when I said have we been changed by hearing about that young woman’s death, a lot of media reported it as a campaign in favor of gay rights, which is absurd. It’s allowing an entirely polarized hermeneutic to come in and actually stop one really listening and seeing what’s going on.”
Stay tuned to Bondings 2.0 later today when the Synod assembly issues its synthesis report.
—Robert Shine (he/him), New Ways Ministry, October 28, 2023
So true. Thanks.
I am a proud father of a transgender child. A very loving and dedicated individual to diversity equity and inclusion. This begins with his devoted love to Christ and His teaching of LOVE for all and not diminishing who they are. We as Catholics of the truww church should be the out front leaders in promoting inclusion into our faith all people and this stance by so many in our faith is totaly against the will of Christ. When is this church going to acknowledge this primarty principle of Christ and STOP this discrimonation of the LGBTQ community. They are a creation of the Supreme Being and as such need their proper recognition and acceptance into this, supposedly loving community. This Hierarchy of the Catholic Church needs total inclusion of 10% of our world population and STOP with things can be changed with a conversion process to make them something that they can never become. I ask for immediate inclusion of the LGBTQ community into our welcoming hands.