The Catholic Church is to meet the Scottish Justice Secretary after a priest in Glasgow was allegedly spat on and attacked with a baton during an Orange walk.
Archbishop Philip Tartaglia of Glasgow and Anthony Horan, director of the Scottish Catholic Parliamentary Office, have accepted an invitation to meet Humza Yousaf, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, later this month, the Scottish Catholic Observer reported.
They will discuss the incident at St Alphonsus’ Church in the East End, which has been condemned by politicians from all parties and resulted in more than 60,000 people signing a petition for Orange walks to be banned.
The Archbishop will call on the Scottish Government to prevent anti-Catholic hate crime from being "swept under the carpet and simply labelled as sectarian".
The Church said the Scottish Government "must not be afraid of confronting the truth".
The statement, from Mr Horan, praised the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and other politicians for condemning the attack, however it added: “We now need leadership and that leadership should come from government in the form of a strong message that anti-Catholic behaviour will no longer be tolerated and that government will do everything in its power to stop it.”
Canon Tom White, parish priest St Alphonsus’ and St Mary’s in Calton, said he was twice spat on and attacked by a man carrying a pole as parishioners left Mass at the same time as a passing Orange march on July 7.
He added that he was subjected to sickening verbal abuse and called a "Fenian" and a "paedophile".
Another Orange walk is set to pass the church on July 21.
A Church spokesman said: “This is a welcome opportunity to discuss the issue of safety and the right of Catholics to be protected from violence, aggression and intimidation during the so-called marching season and also wider issues of anti-Catholic hate crime which continues to dominate religiously aggravated offending in Scotland.”
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