"We are at war!"--Archbishop Prendergast

Archbishop Prendergast gave a great talk recently and I wrote about it. Finally, one of the paper's is carrying it.

Here's an excerpt from Western Catholic Reporter:

OTTAWA - Speaking to a euthanasia conference March 26, Ottawa Archbishop Terrence Prendergast told the health professionals in attendance: "We are at war."

The latest battlefront in this spiritual war is the mass media's fueling of a desire for legalized euthanasia and desensitizing people to the mystery of death, he said.

While the war is fought in public, the archbishop made clear who he believes is the ultimate foe.

The struggle is not against "flesh and blood enemies but against spiritual forces of evil," he said. "The war we fight as Christians will not end until the world ends."

This war is nothing new; it's a central fact taught by Jesus, St. Paul and St. Ignatius that has been rejected in our modern era, he said.

NO ORDINARY WAR

But this is no ordinary war, he stressed, because the Lord has already won the battle. "We can't be defeated; the danger is that we will surrender."

Prendergast urged the dozens of health professionals and anti-euthanasia advocates gathered for the Catholic Organization for Life and Family's (COLF) annual bio-ethics seminar March 25-26 to commit themselves to a defence of life in caring for the elderly and the dying.

The archbishop warned against giving up and giving in. He also urged people to be on the lookout for new strategies on the part of the enemy.