Labour leadership frontrunner Andy Burnham MP has urged Pope Francis to change the Church's stance on homosexuality following the comments of a senior Vatican official. Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin reportedly said he was “deeply saddened” by the result of the same-sex marriage referendum in Ireland last Friday. But in his column for The Daily Mirror on Wednesday the Shadow Secretary of State for Health urged the Pontiff to endorse a new stance on gay rights. He said that he wanted the Church to promote what he described as "the innate equality in law of every human being". Mr Burnham is currently the bookmakers’ favourite to take charge of the Labour Party and will become the first Catholic to do so if he wins the leadership contest. He said: “Our new Pope has brought back a forgiving and warm-hearted style that seemed to characterise the Catholic Church in my youth. “He is the right man to seize this moment and taking his cue from his flock in Ireland, bring the Church into the 21st century.”