ROME — A notorious “Catholic” pro-LGBT group has ranked the new batch of cardinals-elect named by Pope Francis as 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,” gushes Robert Shine, managing editor of New Ways Ministry, a pseudo-Catholic organization whose beliefs collide with those of the Church.
Overall, Shine writes, “those who had public records on LGBTQ+ issues were largely welcoming,” and topping the list was gay-rights advocate Father Timothy Radcliffe, a Dominican friar who has championed the homosexual cause for decades.
Radcliffe raised eyebrows back in 2006 by urging Catholics to accompany homosexuals by “watching Brokeback Mountain, reading gay novels, living with our gay friends and listening with them as they listen to the Lord.”
Another new cardinal-to-be, Bishop Pablo Virgilio David of Kalookan, Philippines, 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 highlights Archbishop Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi of Tokyo, Japan, who will join the others to become a cardinal on December 8. In 2023, Kikuchi contributed to a 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.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “is obliged to declare for the good of the Catholic faithful that the positions advanced by Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination are doctrinally unacceptable because they do not faithfully convey the clear and constant teaching of the Catholic Church in this area,” the text declared.
While Father Nugent and Sister Gramick have often stated that they seek to treat homosexual persons with respect, compassion and sensitivity, the document adds, “the promotion of errors and ambiguities is not consistent with a Christian attitude of true respect and compassion.”
Persons who are struggling with homosexuality “no less than any others have the right to receive the authentic teaching of the Church from those who minister to them,” it said.
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 pope’s closest advisers, and upon the death of a pope it falls to the college of cardinals to meet in conclave to elect a new pope.
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