Sharon Stone urges Catholic church to ‘open its doors’ to LGBT+ people: ‘Listen to God’
Sharon Stone and Pope Francis. (Franco Origlia/Marc Piasecki/FilmMagic/Getty)
Sharon Stone has urged the Catholic church to “open its doors to LGBTQ Catholics” in a surprising intervention.
Speaking to Italian newspaper La Stampa, the Basic Instinct actor characterised Pope Francis as a supporter of the LGBT+ community who is fighting against oppressive forces in the Vatican.
“On gay marriage, on adoptions for singles, on various fronts, I want to say: Listen to your pope and respect him!” Sharon Stone said at the Cannes Film Festival.
She continued: “The church should open its doors to LGBTQ Catholics and the curia should accept the directives of this pope who is wonderful.
“God sent him to them, listen to God,” she added, according to Religion News Service.
Sharon Stone thinks Pope Francis is ‘a good man’
This isn’t the first time Sharon Stone has spoken out in favour of Pope Francis – in April 2020, she expressed her support for the pontiff, calling him “a good man, of sound common sense”.
While Stone appears to believe that Pope Francis is a champion of the LGBT+ community, the truth is far more complex than that.
The pontiff made global headlines in 2013 when he famously asked: “Who am I to judge?” in relation to gay priests.
He has also won praise for his outreach efforts. In June, he paid tribute to a pro-LGBT+ priest, James Martin, for his “pastoral zeal”.
In September 2020, he urged parents to love their LGBT+ children as they are “because they are children of God”.
However, the Vatican has never swayed from its anti-LGBT+ teachings under his leadership. In 2019, the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education issued a statement that reaffirmed the church’s opposition to trans identities.
“Gender theory (especially in its most radical forms) speaks of a gradual process of denaturalisation, that is a move away from nature,” the controversial document said.
There was widespread jubilation among LGBT+ Catholics late last year when it was widely reported that Pope Francis had signalled his support for same-sex civil unions.
However, the Vatican hit back at the reports, suggesting that his remarks had been “edited” and lacked “proper contextualisation”.
In March, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) issued a new explanatory note that banned priests from blessing same-sex couples.
The move was widely condemned by progressive Catholics, with many characterising the move as unnecessary and cruel.
