Cardinal Keith O’Brien’s reputation for speaking before he has fully engaged his brain did not need strengthening.

He has accused the Scottish Executive of presiding over the moral destruction of society, likened sex education to child abuse, and criticised mixed-faith school campuses, and before the Scottish elections backed calls for independence.

Yet until his surprise elevation in 2003, Cardinal O’Brien, 69, who was born in Co Antrim, had been viewed as a liberal, and less traditionally doctrinaire than his predecessor, Cardinal Thomas Winning. The new man even suggested that there could be open debate about church teaching on contraception and priestly celibacy.

He soon learnt better. Influential Roman Catholic publications spoke of the shock of his appointment, describing him as possessing “controversial views”. An Italian newspaper had a Vatican insider dismiss the Scot as a mistake.

Perhaps lacking confidence, perhaps theologically and intellectually overawed, Cardinal O’Brien denied that he had ever been a liberal in the first place.

Since then, he has stuck to the Vatican line. Whether by choice or naivety, he has managed to fall out with one of his Church’s longstanding allies, the Scottish Labour Party.

Yesterday’s statement, aimed at the predominantly Labour politicians in the Catholic heart-land of the West of Scotland, serve only to intensify that sense of schism.

Scotland’s Catholics have stayed loyal to Labour, which has protected the faith with state-funded Catholic schools. Last autumn Cardinal O’Brien, wooed by the Nationalists, said he would be “happy” with an independent Scotland – although he was soon in apparent retreat, giving warning that independence would have a hefty price tag attached.

Underlying this was his increasing disgruntlement with Labour’s agenda of social reforms, beginning with the repeal in 2003 by the Executive of the “Section 28” bar on local authorities promoting homosexuality.

The Cardinal has been unhappy with the experiment in mixed-faith school campuses, whereby facilities are shared. He has tried to stifle debate on the future of Catholic schools. Same-sex civil partnerships and adoption by homosexuals met with a similar response.

The Cardinal accused Jack McConnell’s Scottish Executive last year of presiding over the moral “destruction of society”. It was a “deeply hedonistic society”, where ancient morals were being replaced by “issues of lifestyle and choice”.

When research into sectarianism showed that Catholics were twice as likely as Protestants to suffer religious hate crimes, the Cardinal accused the media of “fanning the flames of religious hatred”. Heclaimed that Catholics were five times more likely to be victims and declared: “It is not poverty, alcohol or football which underpins most cases of such crime in Scotland, but blatant antiCatholicism. Attacks on Catholic schools fill the letters pages, opinion columns and editorials of our newspapers and the airtime of our radio and TV stations.”

The Cardinal, for all his lack of caution in public speaking, is said to be in private a kindly, consultative, avuncular man. He has said he sees his role as a peacemaker. Quite how he will concur with the Scottish National Party administration on social issues remains to be seen.