Recently Pope Francis announced that he would be elevating 21 men to the office of Cardinal and one of them is a Dominican priest named Father Timothy Radcliffe

Now he's created controversy with his past statements about homosexuality so I wanted to go through a recent article he wrote for

Father James Martin's Outreach magazine and show what's so pernicious about his

rhetoric. And after that I'll give some brief thoughts about Pope Francis selecting him to be a

Cardinal. First, like Father Martin, Father Radcliffe will talk out of both sides of

his mouth, making it seem like he's perfectly orthodox. For example, some people

quote him as saying regarding

homosexuality, I am convinced of the fundamental wisdom of the church's teaching.

But they then leave out what he says next, but I do not yet fully understand how this is to be lived by

young gay Catholics who accept their sexuality and rightly long to express their

affection. Now this can mean that he doesn't know what positive steps a person should take in spite of this difficult

cross to carry. Or it could mean that there is a way to express homosexual conduct that

accords with some abstract fundamental principle like

love your neighbor. Indeed Father Radcliffe has previously disagreed with the church's policies

on not allowing gay men to become priests. And he wrote an article

saying that in order to understand gay people we must do things like watch Brokeback

Mountain, a film about a gay adulteress relationship between two cowboys who were married to women.

In 2013, he contributed to a report from the Church of England where he wrote the following.

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,

...