ROME — Indonesian Bishop Paskalis Bruno Syukur has declined Pope Francis’s appointment to become a cardinal, an extremely unusual response to an honor of this type.
“Pope Francis has accepted the request of His Excellency Paskalis Bruno Syukur, Bishop of Bogor, Indonesia, not to be created Cardinal during the upcoming Consistory,” reads a statement Wednesday from the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni.
“His Excellency’s request is motivated by his desire to grow further in priestly life, in service to the Church and to the people of God,” the statement concludes.
The 62-year-old bishop is one of 21 clerics chosen by Pope Francis to be created cardinals in a Vatican consistory scheduled for December 7, 2024.
The pontiff’s recent announcement of his list of nominees sparked consternation among the faithful because of the presence of the well-known gay-rights activist Father Timothy Radcliffe as well as number of others with “LGBTQ-positive records.”
Father Radcliffe, a Dominican friar, was a leader of the Catholic Church’s progressive wing for decades. He was largely sidelined during the pontificates of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI but like many others has found new life under Francis.
In 2023, the pope chose the woke friar to open the Vatican Synod on Synodality, and he began his words by confessing, “I am old, white, a Westerner, and a man! I don’t know which is worse.”
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.
Father Radcliffe has been a vocal supporter of progressive causes for decades, often lending his voice to the lobby to rehabilitate gay sex, insisting there is always time for future “evolution” on Catholic moral teaching, which has made him a darling of the LGBT lobby.
Radcliffe has publicly opposed the Church’s ban on admitting men with homosexual tendencies into seminaries to become priests.
In an interview with the London Times in 2005, Radcliffe argued that while “homophobia or misogyny” should be grounds for rejecting a candidate for the priesthood, his homosexuality should not.
“I have no doubt that God does call homosexuals to the priesthood, and they are among the most dedicated and impressive priests I have met,” he stated.
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.”
In 2013, Father Radcliffe argued that gay sex can be “Eucharistic,” expressive of Christ’s self-gift in Holy Communion.
We cannot begin with the question of whether gay sex is permitted or forbidden!, he stated. “We must ask what it means, and how far it is Eucharistic.”
“Certainly it can be generous, vulnerable, tender, mutual and non-violent. So in many ways, I would think that it can be expressive of Christ’s self-gift,” he said.
“We can also see how it can be expressive of mutual fidelity, a covenantal relationship in which two people bind themselves to each other for ever,” he added.
New Ways Ministry, a pseudo-Catholic pro-LGBT group, expressed delight with Francis’s appointment of Radliffe to the college of cardinals, and said the new batch of cardinals-elect is largely “LGBTQ-positive.”
“Pope Francis has named 21 new cardinals, a number of whom have LGBTQ-positive records, to be elevated at a December consistory,” declared Robert Shine, New Ways Ministry’s managing editor.
Overall, Shine wrote, “those who had public records on LGBTQ+ issues were largely welcoming.”
Along with Father Radcliffe, the appointees also include Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, Philippines, who threw his public support behind legislation that would create special protections relating to “gender identity” and “sexual orientation,” describing support for the bill as a “Christian imperative.”
New Ways also highlighted Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, Japan, who contributed to a 2023 volume of essays titled LGBT and Christianity, which was edited by a gay United Church of Christ pastor. The Tokyo archdiocese supports and promotes the LGBT Catholic Japan group, including its monthly Masses.
In 1999, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) permanently barred the two co-founders of New Ways Ministry, Sr. Jeannine Gramick, SSND, and Fr. Robert Nugent, from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons because of “errors and ambiguities” in their pastoral approach.
For their part, the U.S. bishops have openly refuted New Ways Ministry’s claim to be a Catholic organization.
In 2010, Cardinal Francis George, then-president of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference (USCCB), issued a statement noting that “from the time of the organization’s founding in 1977, serious questions have been raised about the group’s adherence to Church teaching on homosexuality.”
“No one should be misled by the claim that New Ways Ministry provides an authentic interpretation of Catholic teaching and an authentic Catholic pastoral practice,” Cardinal George wrote. “Their claim to be Catholic only confuses the faithful regarding the authentic teaching and ministry of the Church with respect to persons with a homosexual inclination.”
“Like other groups that claim to be Catholic but deny central aspects of Church teaching,” the cardinal declared, “I wish to make it clear that New Ways Ministry has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and that they cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States.”
In the Catholic Church, cardinals are the closest advisers to the Roman Pontiff, and upon the death of a pope it falls to the college of cardinals to meet in conclave to elect a new pope.