A Catholic newspaper in Australia has rejected an advert from former Irish President Mary McAleese, because she isn’t a homophobe.

Catholic Weekly, which has a readership of around 50,000, declined to run an ad from the Ms McAleese, who is due to speak at a ‘Catalyst for Renewal’ event in Sydney.

Editor Peter Rosengren told the Irish Echo he could not run an ad from someone “in favour of homosexuality”.

He said: “She is reported as being in favour of ordination of women as Catholic priests and in favour of homosexuality – whatever that actually means.

“No matter how admirable a person she is it places me in some difficulty as editor of the Catholic Weekly.

“Homosexuality and other identifications that people may use to describe themselves such as bisexual, transgendered and so on… may obscure for people the meaning of their lives, but the dividing line for the Church is that homosexual acts definitely do.

“Having previously employed an openly same-sex attracted columnist on an official Catholic newspaper I feel quite entitled to make these observations.”

Ms McAleese, who oversaw the country’s civil partnerships law, earlier this year called on the Catholic Church to rethink its stance on homosexuality.

She said in January: “I don’t like my Church’s attitude to gay people. I don’t like ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’.

“If you are the so-called sinner, who likes to be called that? We also know that within the priesthood a very large number of priests are gay.”