Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that he believes the American public has misinterpreted the actual meaning of “separation of church and state" during a speech at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast (NCPB).

“Militant secularists have long seized on that slogan as a facile justification for attempting to drive religion from the public square and to exclude religious people from bringing a religious perspective to bear on conversations about the common good,” Barr said during the virtual ceremony that had been postponed since March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Barr said he believes that “traditional morality” has diminished, to be replaced by people who are “actively hostile” in advocating for the separation of church and state – threatening core principles in the country's democracy.