Philip Egan, the recently appointed Catholic bishop of Portsmouth in England has made history in English Catholicism by becoming perhaps the first member of the episcopate in decades to publicly endorse the Church’s teaching on contraception, calling it a “prophetic” papal doctrine.

In a pastoral letter dated December 30, the Church’s feast of the Holy Family, Egan brought up a “very challenging and controversial” subject: that “that sexual intercourse is an integral act for love and for life, and that these two aspects of sexuality – love and life – cannot be divorced.”