The “Christian festival” of Easter is shortly to be upon us. On Easter Sunday, Christians commemorate the resurrection of their major religious figure, one Jesus Christ. Their holy men are particularly central in the celebrations.

On the activities in one London locale in the run up to that happy event next weekend, The Sunday Times reports:

An Anglican priest is in hospital after he was beaten up and insulted in what appears to be a “faith hate” assault by Asian youths.

Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was kicked and punched in the head and left with deep cuts, bruising and two black eyes in the grounds of his historic church in east London after he asked three Asian youths there to be quiet…

Intolerance on that priest’s part, clearly.

…Alan Green, area dean for Tower Hamlets, said: “It was a nasty cowardly attack. There were several groups in the churchyard and two from one group attacked him and the other group came and helped him back to the house.

He was kicked and punched in the head as he lay on the ground, I believe that what was shouted was ‘you f****** priest’ before they attacked him.”…

…The church had previously been targeted when a brick smashed a window during a service. Allan Ramanoop, a member of the parochial church council, said: “On one occasion, youths shouted: ‘This should not be a church, this should be a mosque, you should not be here’…

So presumably his attackers weren’t irate Asian Anglicans?

…[His wife] said her husband was concerned publicity about the attack could fuel inter-faith tensions. “He does not want the level of fuss and attention. I think he feels it’s quite difficult in the local area.”

Why should it ever be “quite difficult” for an Anglican priest to go about his business anywhere in this country?

Lastly, notice these interesting choices for factual summations, in the conclusion:

The Met recorded an upsurge in attacks against Muslims after the July 2005 bombings in London. There are also numerous attacks against Jews but, according to police statistics, relatively few Christians are attacked because of their faith.

On the first, is that supposed to be some sort of weird justification? Well, in media terms it might be. For it has become a matter of sloppy dogma (for lack of a better word) in much media that there was an “upsurge in attacks against Muslims” following the 7/7 attacks.

Yet that characterization conveniently starts the “tale” in — at best — mid-paragraph. That’s because planting that statistical flag in the 7/7 context requires one to be less than candid in choosing also statistically to omit any reference to the unbelievably murderous “hate crimes” that were the 7/7 attacks themselves. Indeed, there is absolutely no reason to believe those relatively minor “attacks” afterwards — including the reported avalanche of “dirty looks” — would have ever taken place if the 7/7 suicide bombings had not.

And, as for the second, does The Times happen to think more Christians should be targeted for their faith?