Timothy Radcliffe

Father Timothy Radcliffe
Master Emeritus of the Order of Preachers
File:Timothy Radcliffe.jpg
Church	Roman Catholic Church
In office	1992–2001
Predecessor	Damian Byrne
Successor	Carlos Azpiroz Costa
Orders
Ordination	2 October 1971
Personal details
Birth name	Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe
Born	(1945-08-22) 22 August 1945 London, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Denomination	Catholic
Residence	Blackfriars, Oxford, England, United Kingdom
Occupation	Priest, academic, theologian

Timothy Peter Joseph Radcliffe, OP (born 22 August 1945) is an English Catholic priest who served as Master of the Order of Preachers from 1992 to 2001. He is the only member of the order's English Province to hold that office. On 6 October 2024 Pope Francis announced plans to make him a member of the College of Cardinals on 7 December 2024.

Radcliffe served as director of the Las Casas Institute, which promotes social justice and human rights.

Biography

Formation

Timothy Radcliffe was born on 22 August 1945 in London. He studied at Worth Preparatory School (Worth School) in Sussex, Downside School in Somerset and St John's College, Oxford. He entered the Dominican Order in 1965 and was ordained a priest in 1971.

Career

During the mid-1970s, Radcliffe was based at the West London Catholic Chaplaincy. He taught scriptures at Oxford and was elected provincial of England in 1988. In 1992, he was elected master of the Dominican Order, holding that office until 2001. During his tenure as master, Radcliffe served as ex-officio grand chancellor of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

In 2001, after the expiration of his term as master, Radcliffe took a sabbatical year. In 2002, he became again a simple member of the Dominican community of Oxford. He now preaches and carries out public speaking internationally.

After serving for several years on the advisory board of the Las Casas Institute, which "critical reflection on questions of human dignity in the light of Catholic social teaching and theology", he became the Institute's director in April 2014. His term as director ended after two years and he continued thereafter as a member of the advisory board.

In 2015, Radcliffe was named a consultor to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

Although not a topic Radcliffe has often written on in his numerous publications, he has publicly defended the teaching of the Catholic Church on same-sex marriage:

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, no future. Marriage takes all sorts of forms, from the alliance of clans through bride exchange to modern romantic love. We have come to see that it implies the equal love and dignity of man and woman. But everywhere and always, it remains founded on the union in difference of male and female. Through ceremonies and sacrament this is given a deeper meaning, which for Christians includes the union of God and humanity in Christ.

In January 2023, Pope Francis named Radcliffe to lead a three-day preparatory retreat for participants in the Synod on Synodality in October 2023. He returned to deliver the preparatory retreat for the October 2024 part of the same synod.

On 6 October 2024, Pope Francis announced that he will make Radcliffe a cardinal on 8 December, a date which was later changed to 7 December.

Radcliffe is a patron of Positive Faith, the main ministry of Catholic AIDS Prevention and Support, sits on the Council on Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament, and is a patron of Embrace the Middle East.

Honours

In 2003, Oxford awarded Radcliffe an honorary Doctor of Divinity. The Chancellor, the Right Honorable Christopher Patten, ended the award citation with the following words:

I present a man distinguished both for eloquence and for wit, a master theologian who has never disregarded ordinary people, a practical man who believes that religion and the teachings of theology must be constantly applied to the conduct of public life.

Radcliffe received the 2007 Michael Ramsey Prize for theological writing for his book What Is the Point of Being A Christian?

In 2024, Liverpool Hope University, awarded an Honorary Doctorate to Radcliffe.

Bibliography

Books

• Sing a New Song. The Christian Vocation. Dublin: Dominican Publications, 1999. ISBN 1-871552-70-2
• I Call You Friends. London: Continuum, 2001. ISBN 0-8264-7262-1
• Seven Last Words. London: Burns & Oates, 2004. ISBN 0-86012-365-0
• What Is the Point of Being A Christian?. London and New York: Burns & Oates, 2005. ISBN 0-86012-369-3
• Just One Year: Prayer and Worship through the Christian Year, edited by Timothy Radcliffe with Jean Harrison. London: Darton, Longman and Todd for CAFOD and Christian Aid, 2006. ISBN 0-232-52669-9
• Why Go to Church? The Drama of the Eucharist London: Continuum, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8264-9956-1. Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent book 2009.
• Christians and Sexuality in the Time of AIDS, with Lytta Basset. London: Continuum. ISBN 978-0-8264-9911-0
• Take the Plunge: Living Baptism and Confirmation. London: Burns & Oates, 2012. ISBN 978-1-4411-1848-6.
• The Hope that is Within You: Interviewed by Raymond Friel. Redemptorist Publications. April 2016. ISBN 9780852314630
• ”Alive in God: A Christian Imagination”London:Bloomsbury Continuum 2019 ISBN 978-1-4729-7020-6

Letters to the Order

• Vowed to Mission (1994)
• The Wellspring of Hope. Study and the Annunciation of the Good News (1996)
• The Identity of Religious Today (1996)
• Dominican Freedom and Responsibility. Towards a Spirituality of Government (1997)
• The Bear and the Nun : What is the Sense of Religious Life Today ! (1998)
• The Promise of Life (1998)
• The Rosary (1998)
• Letter to our brothers and sisters in initial formation (1999)
• To Praise, to Bless, to Preach. The Mission of the Dominican Family (2000)
• The Throne of God (2000)
• St Catherine of Siena (1347–1380) Patroness of Europe (2000)
• The Parable of the Good Samaritan (2001)
• "A city set on a hilltop cannot be hidden" A Contemplative Life (2001)
• Mission to a Runaway World: Future Citizens of the Kingdom (2002)

See also

• Catholic Church in the United Kingdom

External links

• A selection of Radcliffe's sermons
• The 15 Letters to the Order written by Radcliffe as Master of the Dominican Order between 1993 and 2001

Catholic Church titles
Preceded by Damian Byrne	Master General of the Dominican Order 1992–2001	Succeeded by Carlos Azpiroz Costa