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Bishop Philip EganMazur/catholicnews.org.uk

PORTSMOUTH, England, April 25, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — UK Catholic bishop Philip Egan is calling upon faithful Catholics to “rise up” and fight back against “dangerous ideologies” threatening the “Christian patrimony” that made England great. He is asking them to reclaim their Christian heritage and to make sure that the heritage is passed onto their children in state schools. 

“We need to rise up to the challenge. We need to roll back the agenda. We need to revive and celebrate our Christian history, art and architecture, music and literature, liturgy and ethics,” he said during his homily delivered during the Easter Vigil Mass on April 15. 

“We need to promote in state schools a renewed knowledge of the Bible, of basic prayers, and basic Christmas carols, of the history of the Church, and of the saints who established and fashioned the character of these islands,” he added.

“In this mission, we Christians are crucial. We Catholics are crucial. Because much of what has made this country great has been nurtured by our tradition. We need by prayer, word, and deed to lead the new evangelization of our land,” he urged. 

Egan said the “two dangerous ideologies” of “fundamentalism” and “secularism” are battling for supremacy in this day, just as “Communism and Fascism” fought each other in the 20th century.

“On the one side is fundamentalism, religion without reason. It breeds fanaticism, violence, terrorism, to cause disruption and to force upon others its extremist views. This is a tragic reality in the volatile nations of the Middle East. It now threatens the west also,” he said. 

“On the other side is secularism, reason without religion. Its champions seek to privatize religion, driving it out of the public domain. Egged on by Stonewall [a homosexual activist group] and by others, secularists are on the rise in local government, in education, in the media, in the social services, in the BMA, in the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, in the European Court of Justice, and in many other institutions too,” he added. 

The bishop said secularists are “hellbent on burying the Christian patrimony of this land,” proposing “Orwellian changes to our language” and placing “ever more draconian restrictions on religious expression, even on what we wear.”

“Both fundamentalism and secularism are extremes. They are totalitarian. They are destructive of the human person. They pose a grave threat to human happiness and to a healthy society,” he said. 

Egan emphasized the dangers of secularism to the nation by quoting from an address given by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 when he visited the UK’s Houses of Parliament. 

“[Benedict] argued that religion and reason, together in fruitful dialogue, both are needed to ground a truly free, pluralist, and democratic society, a home for all. Otherwise, if we let secularism prevail, British culture will become increasingly unhinged, adrift, prey to emotionalism and to the latest pressure group,” he said.

“As we know, this is now having lethal consequences for the weakest, for the unborn child, for the handicapped, the elderly, the dying,” he added. 

Bishop Egan said Christians this Easter need to rise up and say “enough is enough.”

The bishop is known as a faithful witness to Catholic moral and social teachings, especially those involving life, marriage, and family. 

In 2015, he issued guidelines for parishes giving to charities, teaching that the charities must not oppose Church teaching, giving as an example a charity that is connected to the “grave moral evil” of promoting contraception and abortion. 

In 2014, he said before the Vatican’s Extraordinary Synod of Bishops that Catholic teaching on marriage cannot simply change because “progressively-minded Catholics” want it to. 

In 2013, the bishop criticized a bill giving homosexuals the right to “marry.” He called “gay marriage” the logical and “inevitable outcome of a process that has been gathering pace since the sexual revolutions of the 1960s.”

Last year, Bishop Egan visited all 76 Catholic schools in his diocese, urging them to “create an authentic Christian ethos.” He proposed that the curriculum focus exclusively on Christ, that the schools emphasize daily prayer, and that they seek to foster vocations to the Christian teaching profession.

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Relevant portion of Bishop Philip Egan's Easter Vigil homily, April 15, 2017

In our world, two dangerous ideologies are mounting. Just as in the 20th century it was Communism versus Fascism, so in the 21st a new battle is brewing. 

On the one side is fundamentalism, religion without reason. It breeds fanaticism, violence, terrorism, to cause disruption and to force upon others its extremist views. This is a tragic reality in the volatile nations of the Middle East. It now threatens the West also. 

On the other side is secularism, reason without religion. Its champions seek to privatize religion, driving it out of the public domain. Egged on by Stonewall [a homosexual activist group] and by others, secularists are on the rise in local government, in education, in the media, in the social services, in the BMA, in the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, in the European Court of Justice, and in many other institutions too.

Hell-bent on burying the Christian patrimony of this land, they propose Orwellian changes to our language and place ever more draconian restrictions on religious expression, even on what we wear. Both fundamentalism and secularism are extremes. They are totalitarian. They are destructive of the human person. They pose a grave threat to human happiness and to a healthy society. 

Now, during the papal visit in 2010, Pope Benedict gave an address to the Houses of Parliament in which he argued that religion and reason, together in fruitful dialogue, both are needed to ground a truly free, pluralist, and democratic society, a home for all. Otherwise, if we let secularism prevail, British culture will become increasingly unhinged, adrift, prey to emotionalism and to the latest pressure group. 

As we know, this is now having lethal consequences for the weakest, for the unborn child, for the handicapped, the elderly, the dying. 

This is why this Easter, as Christians, it's time we said, ‘enough is enough!’ 

We need to rise up to the challenge. We need to roll back the agenda. We need to revive and celebrate our Christian history, art and architecture, music and literature, liturgy and ethics. 

We need to promote in state schools a renewed knowledge of the Bible, of basic prayers, and basic Christmas carols, of the history of the Church, and of the saints who established and fashioned the character of these islands. 

In this mission, we Christians are crucial. We Catholics are crucial. Because much of what has made this country great has been nurtured by our tradition. We need by prayer, word, and deed to lead the new evangelization of our land.