Attorney General William Barr on Friday faulted the “ascendancy” of secularism in America for mental illness, violence and drug abuse.

“Virtually every moral pathology has gained ground,” he said in a speech at the University of Notre Dame’s law school. (See the video above beginning at 21:48.)

The speech revealed how deeply the top lawman in the nation is tied to his Catholicism as he lashed a recent New Jersey law requiring LGBTQ curriculum in public schools to support civil rights. He complained that laws are being “used as a battering ram to break down traditional moral values.”

Barr said that secular militants, including “so-called progressives,” are mobilized in an “organized destruction” of religion. He vowed that his Justice Department will fight for the “most cherished of all our American liberties: the freedom to live according to our faith.”

Because of the decreasing influence of Judeo-Christian traditions, Barr insisted, “along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence and a deadly drug epidemic.”

(Violent crime has decreased significantly over the past quarter century, according to statistics collected by the federal government.)

He added: “I won’t dwell on the bitter results of the new secular age. Suffice it to say that the campaign to destroy the traditional moral order has ... brought with it immense suffering and misery.”

Barr called Judeo-Christian moral standards the “ultimate utilitarian rules for human conduct ... They are like God’s instruction manual for the best running of man and the best operation for human society,” he added.

Barr said religion has been under “increasing” assault in America over the last 50 years and that “ground zero” for attacks on religion now are “the schools.”