The appointments were announced by Pope Francis at Vatican City on Sunday. Fr Radcliffe has strong links with Tralee where he visited the Holy Cross Dominican Friary at Prince’s Street during his time as Master of the Order of Preachers between 1992 and 2001.
Fr Radcliffe’s promotion reignites his special link with Kerry and his many visits to Tralee.
The Kerryman columnist Fr Michael Commane is friends with the new cardinal having invited him to talk in Dublin last February.
Tralee man, the late Fr Leonard Boyle – also a Dominican and the only Irish man to have been prefect of the Vatican Library – had many dealings with Fr Radcliffe. The new cardinal had a special fondness for Fr Boyle, greatly respecting his learning and scholarship.
He is a member of the Dominican Community at Blackfriars and a Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, and is currently serving as spiritual adviser and preacher at the second session of the 16th Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.
An author and theologian, Fr Radcliffe has also written several books. Although Fr Radcliffe has often been a lone voice in the Church in terms of his support for LBTQ+ Catholics, he is on record as saying Catholics should focus less on what others are doing in bed and more on assisting in the search for god.His strong views on same-sex marriage, however, point to it being the sacred preserve of heterosexuals only.
In 2012, Fr Ratcliffe said ‘everywhere and always’ marriage remains founded on the union in difference of male and female.
“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, no future,” he said.
While he supports the concept of love between same sex couples – saying it should be cherished – he believes gay matrimony ‘cuts loose’ marriage from its biological groundings.
He once described gay marriage as denying ‘our humanity’ adding it was like ‘trying to make a cheese soufflé without the cheese, or wine without grapes.’In his speech following the appointments on Sunday, Pope Francis said the ‘origins’ of the cardinals expressed ‘the universality of the Church’.
“[This] continues to proclaim God’s merciful love to all people on earth. Their inclusion in the Diocese of Rome also manifests the inseparable bond between the See of Peter and the particular Churches spread throughout the world,” said Pope Francis.