Hard As Nails, by , California Catholic Daily, January 25, 2011

Hard As Nails

By
California Catholic Daily
January 25, 2011

http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=ed579779-7814-4825-a0eb-6f99464eb0b5

Bishop Robert Vasa, among most orthodox prelates in US, named coadjutor bishop of Santa Rosa

Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon, a tough and outspoken defender of Catholic orthodoxy, has been named Coadjutor Bishop of Santa Rosa.

"The appointment as coadjutor bishop confers on Bishop Vasa, 59, the right to succession to Bishop Daniel F. Walsh, current bishop of Santa Rosa," said a press release from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Bishop Walsh is 73, two years shy of the mandatory retirement age of 75.

"A Coadjutor Bishop is the designated successor of the current bishop of the diocese," said a statement issued by the Santa Rosa diocese. "He assists the current bishop, who remains at the head of the diocese, in the various aspects of pastoral and spiritual leadership of the people. On the retirement of the current bishop, Most Reverend Daniel F. Walsh, Bishop Vasa will become the sixth Bishop of Santa Rosa."

"Bishop Walsh, who had requested the assistance of a coadjutor, expressed his pleasure with the appointment," said the diocesan statement. "I am happy to learn of Bishop Vasa's assignment to the Diocese of Santa Rosa," said Bishop Walsh, "and look forward to introducing him to our parishioners and working in partnership to lay the foundation for our diocesan future."

Bishop Vasa has led the Diocese of Baker since 2000, during which he has developed a national reputation for his orthodoxy and for his willingness to take decisive action.

"In more than a decade as spiritual leader of central and eastern Oregon's Catholics, Bishop Vasa gained a national following for efforts to uphold Catholic teaching in the face of what he considered threats and laxity from inside and outside the church," said a story posted yesterday on the website of The Catholic Sentinel, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Portland. "He had lay ministers sign an oath of fidelity of Catholic teaching and erased the Catholic identity of a Bend hospital where doctors performed sterilizations. He criticized pro-choice Catholic politicians and once warned against a group of schismatics that denied the Second Vatican Council."

In 2003, Bishop Vasa banned the dissident group Voice of the Faithful from meeting on any church property in the diocese. In a 2006 column discussing pro-abortion Catholic politicians, Bishop Vasa suggested they might be guilty of "the right-to-murder heresy." He has long held that Catholic politicians who bring scandal to the faithful by supporting abortion should be denied Communion.

"There is some question, for instance, about whether those who openly profess to be 'pro-choice' are, in fact, holding to a heretical position," Bishop Vasa wrote. "The teaching of the Church in the area of life is clear and unequivocal. Human life must be respected and protected from conception to natural death. Those who maintain that any and all decisions about the disposition of pre-born human beings are exclusively the right of the mother or the parents, at least implicitly, reject the clear and consistent teaching of the Church."

Bishop Vasa was also a prominent and outspoken critic of 'Obamacare,' calling it "fatally flawed" for failing to protect the unborn from government-funded abortions and because it did not include 'conscience' protections for healthcare providers.

In February 2010, Bishop Vasa announced that the diocese was ending its relationship with St. Charles Medical Center in Bend because the hospital continued to perform tubal ligations.

"As bishop, I am responsible for attesting to the full Catholicity of the hospitals in my diocese, a responsibility which I take very seriously, and I have reached the conclusion that I can no longer attest to the Catholicity of St. Charles," Bishop Vasa said in a statement published by the Catholic Sentinel on Feb. 18, 2010. "It would be misleading for me to allow St. Charles Bend to be acknowledged as Catholic in name while I am certain that some important tenets of the ethical and religious directives are no longer being observed."

In a Sept. 16, 2010 talk at the InsideCatholic Partnership Award Dinner, Bishop Vasa stressed the authority of individual bishops in their own dioceses over pronouncements of the USCCB. "Every baptized person is given that three-fold dignity of priest, prophet, and king corresponding to three Christ-like roles: offering sacrifice, teaching, and leading," said Bishop Vasa. "This dignity adheres to a person and, through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, it adheres in a preeminent and inalienable way to individual bishops. Individual bishops, if they rely too strongly on simply following the lead of the conference, do so at great spiritual peril."

"When named to Baker, the bishop described himself as 'common as an old shoe,'" said the Catholic Sentinel's story posted yesterday. "He showed a farmer's resourcefulness, soon rewiring the diocesan offices for a computer network himself. He told the Catholic Sentinel he is 'hard as nails but a Teddy bear inside.'"

"Bishop Walsh said he is likely to leave his Santa Rosa post within a year and hopes to serve at a parish in San Francisco, and will carry the title of bishop emeritus of Santa Rosa," the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported. "Walsh said he has served as a church official, not as a parish priest, since 1970. 'That's long enough for anybody,' he said."

"Bishop Vasa will take up residence in the diocese on March 4, 2011," said the statement issued by the Diocese of Santa Rosa. "A Mass of Reception and Welcome for Bishop Vasa will be celebrated at St. Eugene's Cathedral, Santa Rosa on March 6th at 10:30 a.m."

The Diocese of Santa Rosa includes Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt and Del Norte counties, with an estimated 165,000 Catholics served by 42 parishes and 18 missions.

"At least he's on the west coast and in driving distance," said an email message from the Oregon group VOCAL (Voice of Catholics Advocating Life). "We wish him God Speed and many blessings as he brings the Truth of Faith to California."