Daily Telegraph: Philip Tartaglia, the current Bishop of Paisley who has voiced his opposition to legalise same-sex marriage, appeared to suggest David Cairns’s death was connected to his sexual orientation.
While he did not name the former Scotland Office minister, who died last year at the age of 44 from acute pancreatitis, his comments attracted fierce criticism from friends and the former Roman Catholic priest’s partner.
They argued it was clear whom he was talking about. Officials later denied the 61 year-old Bishop had intended to “cause offence and he regrets that anyone may have been upset”.
The row came on the same day that Pope Benedict XVI appointed the cleric, the Bishop of Paisley since 2005, as Archbishop-elect of Glasgow.
Speaking at a religious freedom and equality at a conference at Oxford University earlier this year, Bishop Tartaglia appeared to refer to Mr Cairns in response to a member of the audience who spoke about an American homosexual author, who had committed suicide.