“I will sign here in my own blood that of all those who say they are lesbian or gay, at most five to 10 are effectively lesbian or gay,” Cardinal Gustaaf Joos, 80, told a magazine.

“All the rest are simply sexual perverts. Don’t hesitate to write that down. I demand you write it down. If they come to protest on my doorstep, I don’t care. I will not open the door.”

Joos, who studied with Pope John Paul, was appointed cardinal last year.

He made his comments in an interview on the state of Roman Catholicism in overwhelmingly Catholic Belgium whose legislature legalised gay marriages last year and may soon allow same-sex couples to adopt children.

“Real homosexuals don’t walk the streets in colourful suits,” P-Magazine quoted Joos as saying.

“They are people with a serious problem and have to learn to live with it. And if they err, they will be forgiven. We must help those people, not condemn them.”

The Belgian cardinal said his church “rejects homosexuality, not homosexuals.”

He was equally strident in questioning democracy, saying in the same interview,

“Politics, democracy. Don’t make me laugh. The right to vote, what is that all about? I think it is curious a snot-nosed, 18-year-old has the same vote as a father of seven. One has no responsibilities whatsoever, the other provides tomorrow’s citizens.”

END