Salvation, Does the Pope speak for Jesus on this topic?
Last I checked, Radcliffe had not been elected Pope.
The Pope, in appointing someone, is not endorsing everything that person does or says.
God works through flawed people. Solomon was really chosen by God to be king of Israel—but he did not “speak for God” on every topic. Judas and Peter both were chosen by Jesus as apostles, but both had times when they weren’t models of truth.
The Church teaching on Papal teaching is fairly nuanced. Not everything somehow affiliated with the Pope needs to be taken at all seriously—which would certainly include Radcliffe.
The most pertinent excerpt from Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium is from LG 25:
Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.
Radcliffe hasn’t even been made a Bishop. And Pope Francis, while very quick about expressing himself in some forum, doesn’t seem inclined to write Encyclicals (see above comment about the “character of the documents”). Thus far, he has issued one, and that was something that was largely put together under Pope Benedict. When he issues an Encyclical, or a Motu Proprio on a dogmatic subject, there will be something to get worked up about—but only what is actually said in the official language, not what is said in the press.