Europe’s Catholic bishops said on Tuesday that a withdrawn document discouraging European Commission staff from using the word “Christmas” was marred by “anti-religious bias.”

The controversial document, titled “Union of Equality,” recommended the expression “holiday period” instead of “Christmas period,” and, in order to guarantee the right of “every person to be treated equally,” preferred that a more generic “Ms” be used in the place of “Miss or Mrs.” Not only that, the document proposed that names typical to a specific religion such as “Mary” and “John” not be used anymore.

The Vatican’s Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin said the move represented a “cancellation of our roots, the Christian dimension of our Europe, especially with regard to Christian festivals”.

COMECE, (a commission of the Bishops of EU countries) said they “cannot help being concerned about the impression that an anti-religious bias characterized some passages of the draft document”.

The guide urged officials at the European Commission — the executive branch of the European Union, a political and economic bloc of 27 member states — to “avoid assuming that everyone is Christian.”