ONE of Scotland's most senior Catholics has announced plans to step up the Church's opposition to gay marriage after holding talks on the controversial issue with Alex Salmond.

Philip Tartaglia, the Bishop of Paisley, has written a letter that will be read to worshippers across his churches arguing against the plans, which are being consulted on by the Scottish Government.

The Church will also send 100,000 postcards to parishioners throughout Scotland urging them to oppose the idea of gay people being permitted to marry in civil or religious ceremonies and declare their “defence of marriage”.

Bishop Tartaglia, who met the First Minister yesterday to discuss his concerns over Government plans for curbing sectarianism, writes in the missive, In Defence of Marriage, that same-sex marriage is “wrong in principle”.

He argues that “marriage is uniquely the union of a man and a woman, which, by its very nature, is designed for the mutual good of the spouses and to give the children who may be born of that union a father and a mother.

“A same-sex union cannot do that. A same-sex union should not therefore be called marriage”.

The bishop, who earlier this week warned of a “serious chill in relations” between the Catholic Church and the SNP administration, claims there is no good reason to change the current status of people entering civil partnerships.

“The introduction of same-sex marriage into law will have undesirable consequences for the common good with regard to the public understanding of marriage and of parenting, with regard to the religious and moral education of children and young people, and with regard to freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of conscience,” he adds.

Currently, same-sex couples can enter a civil partnership that carries full legal rights.

The UK Coalition has also announced a public consultation, to be launched in March, on how to make civil marriage available to same-sex couples in the rest of the UK.

Bishop Tartaglia also had claimed the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications Bill had been hastily put together while a consensus was developing that the proposed legislation is “problematic”.

After the meeting, both sides made it clear there had been a thaw in relations. However, the Church remains unhappy that statistics on sectarian offences dating back to 2003, including the targets of any abuse, will not be made public as records are kept for only two years.

The bishop had spoken of his disappointment that, despite repeated requests, years of data on sectarian offences “remains locked in the vaults of the Crown Office”.

But it has now emerged most of the data had been destroyed, despite Church officials asking for it since 2006. The only information to be fully analysed and made public will be from 2010.

Peter Kearney, a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland, said: “It’s deeply unfortunate the Crown Office practice has meant that a true and complete historic picture will never emerge.”

The Bishop said: “I particularly welcome the First Minister’s commitment to track and analyse sectarian crime on an on-going basis using all data relating to Section 74 of the Criminal Justice Scotland Act 2003. Clearly, we cannot tackle a problem without first measuring it.”

After the meeting, Mr Salmond said: “I affirmed the Scottish Government’s commitment to publish the key statistics on the level of sectarian crime – not just on a one-off basis, but as an ongoing commitment to help us eradicate it. I also confirmed we would place an explicit freedom of expression clause in the second part of the Bill.”

Colin Macfarlane, director of Stonewall Scotland, said: “It’s sad all the Bishop is worried about is that a few thousand people want to celebrate their committed and stable relationships by having a civil marriage.”