In his first public comments since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its nearly 50-year-old decision that legalized abortion, Justice Samuel Alito said writing the ruling was an “honor.”

Delivering a July 21 keynote address at a gala dinner in Rome sponsored by the University of Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative, Alito said that at first he did not plan on providing examples of criticisms to decisions handed down by foreign courts.

However, “I’ve had a few second thoughts over the last few weeks since I had the honor this term of writing I think the only Supreme Court decision in the history of that institution that has been lambasted by a whole string of foreign leaders who felt perfectly fine commenting on American law,” he said.

“One of these was former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, but he paid the price,” he said, insinuating that Johnson’s criticism of the court’s ruling led to his July 7 resignation.

In his address, Alito also noted criticisms made by foreign leaders against the Supreme Court’s ruling, including French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The justice also said that in order to “win the battle to protect religious freedom in an increasingly secular society, we will need more than positive law.”

“Religious liberty is under attack in many places because it is dangerous to those who want to hold complete power,” Alito said.

Attacks against religious liberty, he added, also probably grow “out of something dark and deep in the human DNA: a tendency to distrust and dislike people who are not like ourselves.”

Full story at Catholic News.