CATHOLIC schools are to defy Jack McConnell’s order to provide pupils with advice on obtaining contraception and abortions without their parents’ consent.

Church leaders have said that they will boycott the executive’s sexual health strategy, which will be unveiled this week, reigniting a bitter row with ministers.

McConnell insisted last week that the policy would apply across the state sector and there would be no opt out for faith schools. But the Catholic church said it will bar health workers from giving its pupils advice on how to access contraception or abortion services.

The strategy — which will widen access to sexual health advice in a effort to cut teenage pregnancy rates — has provoked fury among the Catholic hierarchy. Last year Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the leader of Scotland’s Catholics, likened the executive’s proposals to “state-sponsored child abuse”.

He warned that the strategy would be opposed with a campaign similar in scale to that mounted in 2000 against the repeal of section 28, which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools.

Senior church figures have accused the first minister of making a grave misjudgment. They insist that the church will continue to use its legal right to decide what information is provided on school premises, regardless of McConnell’s demand for a blanket policy.

Michael McGrath, education director of the Catholic church in Scotland, said: “The executive is supposed to serve the needs of the community rather than impose what they think is good for you. In a Catholic school we are not going to deliver something that’s in conflict with the teachings of the church.”

The church’s stance means that 126,000 pupils at 400 Catholic primary and secondary schools will continue to be encouraged to abstain from sex before marriage. The church will also continue to oppose barrier methods of contraception, including condoms, as well as the morning-after pill.

McConnell has already sought to allay the Catholic church’s concerns by allowing a series of concessions. These have angered opposition politicians who have accused him of abrogating responsibility over one of Scotland’s most important health issues.

McConnell has pledged that pre-school children will not receive sex education and that the morning-after pill will not be handed out in schools.

He is expected to go further this week by announcing that sexual health should be promoted in schools within a moral framework in which marriage is praised and pupils are encouraged to delay having sex.

Shona Robison, the SNP shadow health minister, said that McConnell must not “pass the buck” on sensitive issues to health boards. “It seems unfair to leave it to them. He should really give a steer on what he thinks,” she said.

Executive sources said the strength of opinion on all sides left ministers “trying to walk a tightrope” but they were confident that the strategy would find widespread support.

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