19 October 2024

The listening cardinal

“The Catholic Church does not oppose gay marriage. It considers it to be impossible. Marriage is founded on the glorious fact of sexual difference and its potential fertility. Without this, there would be no life on this planet, no evolution, no human beings.”

You might imagine that these words, published in The Tablet in 2012, come from some right-leaning cleric. Instead, they were written by Timothy Radcliffe OP, pictured at top of page, who is not easily pigeonholed. On 6 October, Radcliffe was named among the new cardinals for the consistory in December, which will bring the number of English cardinals to four – an unprecedented figure. While it was good news for most, some were furious: Timothy Radcliffe is “an antichrist” one tweeted.

In a profile this week, we present Radcliffe as a priest of paradox: orthodox but open-minded, humorous but deadly serious. We look at his deep love of Francis, the Lord of the Rings pope who urges us to keep travelling, “though we do not know the way”, and the marginalised at the heart of his ministry – especially young people, and gay Catholics. We ask what makes him such a thrilling preacher, and show how everything he says and writes has its roots in silence. And we report on his confidence that the Synod, for which, at Francis’s behest, he has preached preparatory retreats, is the “greatest exercise in listening in the history of humanity”, and will bear abundant fruit.

Writing from Rome, in View from the Synod, Austen Ivereigh reports that Pope Francis has given Timothy Radcliffe, and his fellow cardinal-elect, the Dominican archbishop of Algiers, permission to forgo the cardinal’s abito corale and red-piped abito piano, and to wear only the pectoral cross and scarlet zucchetto [skull cap] in addition to their friars’ habits.

Our leader column argues that Israel needs the UN; indeed, in the long run, the support of the UN is the best hope of achieving peace and security. But Israel finds the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), formed nearly 50 years ago to patrol the border between Lebanon and Israel, standing in its way as it tries to neutralise Hezbollah, and has asked it to step aside, which it will not do. So there is stalemate. And the world no longer trusts Israel to comply with international law.

As Keir Starmer’s administration passes its first 100-day mark, a second leader fears that his strengths are being undermined by his weaknesses. The holier-than-thou tone of his election campaign invites cries of “hypocrisy” as his own foibles – his acceptance of gifts from Lord Alli, for example – become apparent. He needs a vision which will appeal to hearts as well as heads.

Julia Langdon picks up this theme in examining Starmer’s “shaky start”, and the pervasive sense of disappointment with which our national life has been imbued since the election. Ending the universal winter fuel allowance was, she says, “a feel-bad decision if ever there was one” – and from a Prime Minister who can’t even stump up for his own spectacles…

On 13 October 1964, Patrick Keegan, Lancashire-born son of a miner and a four-loom weaver, took to the floor to speak to the bishops at the Second Vatican Council. There was a murmur of anticipation as he stepped up to the microphone. In his speech he claimed the moment as “a point of fulfilment in the historical development of the lay apostolate”. As Pat Jones writes, it was the first time a lay person had spoken at a General Congregation, and it opened the door to today’s synodal process.

In the first of a series of reflections by US Catholics preparing to vote in the forthcoming election, Rachelle Walker, an academic, believes that neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump is offering anything new.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, 52, the third of Donald Trump’s appointees to the US Supreme Court, has been widely dismissed as a Catholic whose religious views compromise her impartiality. But almost four years after she was sworn in as a justice, writes veteran court-watcher Michael McGough, she is increasingly viewed as deliberate and well-prepared, willing, in some cases, to break ranks with other conservative jurists.

Ian Dunn explains how the former head of the SNP, Alex Salmond, who died this week, did much to shift Catholics’ deep and ingrained suspicion of Scottish nationalism. He worked particularly closely with Archbishop Keith O’Brien, and was one of the few to defend him when his downfall came: “It would be a great pity if a lifetime of positive work were lost in the circumstances of his resignation.”

In a letter in response to last week’s leader on assisted dying, a registered nurse expresses a number of concerns on the new Assisted Dying Bill, for example, does it “provide adequate protection for healthcare professionals who refuse to prescribe, dispense and administer poisons, when this is an act that goes against their conscience?”

Andy Drozdiak reports in Home News that Lord Alton of Liverpool, the Catholic cross-bench peer, has warned of a “tsunami” if assisted dying and euthanasia are legalised, while Ruth Gledhill covers the pastoral letter in which Cardinal Vincent Nichols said a “right to die” will inevitably become “a duty to die”.

Elsewhere, the decision of the historic a Catholic school in Bath to redefine itself as a “Christian school in the Catholic tradition” has provoked controversy, writes Bess Twiston Davies. Bess reports in our international news pages on a ruling by the Vatican’s doctrine office to void an intervention from the sostituto at the Secretariat of State in a clerical abuse case. Marie Collins, an abuse survivor and a former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, told Sarah MacDonald she was concerned by the sostituto’s “effort to overturn a proper disciplinary sanction”.

In this week’s Arts pages, Susan Gray follows her nose to “Scent and the Art of the Pre-Raphaelites”, an exhibition where both established artists and perfumiers work together to expand the sensory impact of paintings. Mark Lawson reflects on how Waiting for Godot, often viewed as atheistic, is in fact steeped in Christian reference. Isabelle Grey is entertained by “a delicious #MeToo romp that deftly weaves serious issues through…French Farce and Hollywood Screwball Comedy”. And Alexandra Coghlan applauds a “miraculous” performance by Solomon’s Knot of Monteverdi’s Vespers: 10 singers, scarcely more players, and no conductor.

In Books, Francis Watson enjoys the “lightness of touch” of A History of Sex and Christianity by Diarmaid MacCulloch. Sue Gaisford admires the power of female friendship from childhood to the grave. Brian Morton delights in the impact of Marie Curie upon the lives of other women fascinated by the “faint glow” of radioactive decay. And John Quin enjoys a new study of five black men whose diverse stories highlight the theme of “struggle for acceptance and respect in the face of grotesque inequalities”.