The Conference of Catholic Bishops has said that it is “very worried” about the conscience implications of the Civil Partnership Bill, and have criticised the substance of the Bill, suggesting that it will undermine marriage.

At a press conference following their spring meeting, Bishop Christopher Jones, of Elphin said that the bishops were also considering whether to take a Constitutional action should the Bill become law.

In a statement, Why Marriage Matters, released yesterday, the Bishops said that the Bill was“an extraordinary and far-reaching attack on freedom of conscience and the free practices of religion – which are guaranteed to every citizen under the Constitution”.

It will now be up to each bishop to decide whether to distribute the document in his diocese.

Bishop Jones, who is chairman of the Bishops’ Committee for Family and Children, said that the bishops had voiced their concerns to the secretary general of the Department of Justice and his officials, he said.

In the Why Marriage Matters statement, the bishop said anyone “who conscientiously refuses to carry out such a (same-sex) ceremony will face a fine and up to six months in prison”.

They said that “Christians, Jews and Muslims or anyone else who refuses to make halls and other facilities available for a celebration or reception connected with a same-sex partnership will face prosecution and fines.”

Bishop Jones added: “As you know, marriage and the family are enshrined in the Constitution, and the State has an obligation to protect and promote marriage and family life.”

He continued: “We are really very concerned that the Civil Partnership Bill is going to undermine marriage by conferring all the rights on same-sex unions as marriage, equating same-sex union to marriage itself.”

Same-sex unions were “incapable of realising the specific communion of persons that is marriage.” Marriage, they said, “means the union of a man and woman. A husband is a man who has a wife: a wife is a woman who has a husband.

“A same-sex couple cannot be husband and wife. A same-sex couple cannot procreate a child through the sexual act which expresses married love.

“Same-sex relationships, by their very nature, cannot be considered equal to marriage or almost equal to marriage.”

It was “a grave injustice if the State ignores the unique and proper place of husbands and wives, the place of mothers and fathers, and especially the rights of children, who deserve from society a clear understanding of marriage as they grow to sexual maturity.”

The Civil Partnership Bill “represents a fundamental revolution in our understanding of marriage and the family and cannot go unchallenged”, they said.