A Rogue Receives a Red Hat

This past December, Pope Francis installed 21 men to the cardinalate. Much was made about the “color” of those who received red hats, how many hailed from the fabled “peripheries” of which the Pope likes to speak. Five are from Latin America, two from Asia, two from Africa, one from India, and one from Iran. “Their provenance expresses the universality of the church,” Francis said when announcing the rollcall back in October.

Ah, blessed diversity! Isn’t that one of the pillars of the Church?

Amid the festival of self-congratulation, a paleface slipped through the darkening crowd relatively unnoticed. Yet he, too, hails from a periphery of sorts. He’s the erstwhile High Priest of Cloud Cuckoo Land. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? This once-prominent place has been receding on the ecclesial radar for a few decades now and would be barely a perceptible blip if not for the efforts of the present Pontiff to help it retain relevance.

And who is this priest? None other than Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, O.P. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Along with Hans Küng, Charles Curran, Andrew Greeley, Robert Drinan, and others, he’s one of the doddering poster boys of progressive Catholicism, a member of the outgoing generation of clerical scoundrels who covered their theological shenanigans with the mantle of the “Spirit of Vatican II.” Formerly master general of the Dominican Order from 1992 to 2001, Radcliffe is a walking cliché. He parrots all the standard liberal dogmas. Has he promoted women’s ordination? Yes! Same-sex relationships? Of course! Homosexuals in the priesthood? You bet! Holy Communion for divorced-and-remarried Catholics? Naturally!

Shortly after his elevation was announced, Radcliffe could be heard saying, “It’s a very clericalist point of view” that would deny women’s ordination to the diaconate.

So, it’s clericalist to deny someone a clerical position? Cuckoo!