Glasgow, Scotland, Aug 15, 2017 / 12:50 pm
Crimes motivated by anti-Catholicism are on the rise in Scotland, and a leading Catholic spokesman has said the government must take more specific action to combat the trend.
"Were any other type of crime to be dominated so completely by a single type of behavior, we might expect a targeted strategy to emerge, promoted by the authorities as a response to a particular problem," said Peter Kearney, director of the Scottish Catholic Media Office, in a forthcoming essay for The Scotsman.
Kearney compared the need for a targeted strategy to campaigns against mobile phone use while driving or drunk driving. These specific actions are targeted, rather than a generic campaign for "safe driving."
"The approach is sensible and logical: before a problem can be tackled, it must first be identified and addressed," he said. "Surprisingly, this doesn't happen when it comes to religious intolerance and the criminal behavior which goes with it."