A Mexican Catholic Bishop has said that the Church’s current approach to gay people is “sick and heartless”.

Bishop José Raúl Vera López, who is a member of the Dominican Order, had previously attracted ire from fellow Catholics when he baptised the daughter of a lesbian couple.

He told El Pais: “[Homosexuality] is a topic that we have refused to address.

“The people who say homosexuals are sick are sick themselves.

“The Church needs to come to them not with condemnation, but with dialogue.

“We cannot cancel out a person’s richness just because of his or her sexual preference. That is sick, that is heartless, that is lacking common sense.”

Pope Francis recently indicated he would be happy to baptise aliens, despite his unwillingness to marry homosexuals because it’s not in the Bible.

He said: “If, for example, tomorrow an expedition of Martians came to us here and one said ‘I want to be baptised!’, what would happen?

“Martians, right? Green, with long noses and big ears. [Saint Peter] makes this decision: ‘Who am I to admit impediments?’

“Who are we to close doors?”

In March, the Pope asserted that “Matrimony is between a man and a woman”. He has also urged for “sexual chastity” to fight HIV, and has condemned same-sex adoption.

Earlier this year a New York LGBT homeless shelter invited him to come and see for himself the damage of church policy on gay youth, but he never replied.