Elton John who is expected to wed his partner David Furnish in 2015, told the media he is pleased with Pope Francis’ attempts to reform traditional practices and hopes the Church of England would show more support for same-sex marriages.

“The new Pope has excited me so much by his humanity. He’s stripped it down to the bare bones and said it’s all basically about love and taking everybody in, inclusiveness. And that has to be encouraged by the Church of England,” he said.

John said the Church needs to catch up with the times when it comes to issues like Catholic priests taking vows of celibacy and gay clergymen being allowed to marry.

“These are old and stupid things, and the church hierarchy might be up in arms about it — the traditionalists — but times have changed. We live in a different time. If Jesus Christ was alive today, I cannot see him, as the Christian person that he was and the great person that he was, saying this could not happen. He was all about love and compassion and forgiveness and trying to bring people together, and that is what the church should be about,” he said.

He explained that his marriage to Furnish had to be postponed from summer this year to summer next year because the government “messed up” by announcing that same-sex couples will only be able to convert partnerships to marriage from December 10, 2014.

John said, “We can’t get married this year because we had a civil partnership. I think the government kind of messed that one up. We can’t do it until next year. However, when we do do, it will be very quiet and off the cuff – we had our big shebang when we had our civil union.”

However, John’s comments have been deemed blasphemous by many. Pastor Francis Fosu, national coordinator of Deeper Life Campus Fellowship, said he was shocked with the ace musician’s opinions. He asserted that the only way such thoughts can be eliminated is through the teaching of God’s words.