Vasa Matter? Nothing! (Bishop Robert Vasa of the Diocese of Baker in eastern Oregon)

Creative Minority Report ^ | December 17, 2007

[NYer]

The Bend Bulletin of Oregon has an interesting article on Bishop Robert Vasa of the Diocese of Baker in eastern Oregon.

It is too long an article to reproduce here, but it is well worth the read. I would like to just quote some of the more interesting excerpts and quotes.

Bishop Vasa on his "controversial" orthodoxy:

“I as a teacher have an obligation to say these are not opinion, they are our teachings and are part and parcel of the Catholic Church,” he said. “These are things which stem directly from God himself.”

On the value of a Catholic education:

“Children who go to Catholic school are formed in Catholic beliefs,” he said. For him, that meant that while children in a secular math class might be enamored of pi, children in Catholic school would recognize the Creator in the perfection of pi.

Get on board or get out:
On his insistence that lay ministers sign on the dotted line an affirmation of personal faith which outlines standard and widely accepted church doctrine. Among other things, it asks lay ministers to affirm that they believe the church’s teachings about the sinfulness of contraception, the evil of homosexual acts, the rejection of abortion and euthanasia, obedience to the church and the literal presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist (the wine and bread, or blood and body, of Communion).

The list (in the affirmation) is taken in some circles as the church’s suggestions,” Vasa said. “Whether we feel it’s right or not, the church holds these up as the standard we ought to hold and strive for.”...“We live in an age where the only acceptable virtue is tolerance,” he said. “Unfortunately, it’s a popular mantra that you must not only tolerate what that person does, but you must positively accept it. But to live with integrity, we must not go there.”

On his boldness as Bishop:

“I pray that I do what God wants me to do and I stay out of God’s way. Being given a bias for action can be a dangerous thing because it can tend to displace God. Hopefully, I’ve found a kind of holy boldness.”

Richard Thorne, a member of the diocese, has this to say about his Bishop:

“He stands his ground,” Thorne said. “It’s hard to continue saying there are absolutes in a world that is taught there’s no such thing as absolutes. I wish more bishops had the spiritual testosterone that he has displayed...Wow”

Read the entire article.

[NYer]

What a blessing for his diocese!

[sandhills]

Here is one who stops my rant about bishops.

May God bless him and the people he serves.

[mckenzie7]

Thank you for the great article. When bishops stand for all of the church’s teaching, there are a lot less scandals to read about in the morning papers.

Thank God for Bishop Vasa!

[sitetest]

I hear there may be a job opening up in New York soon.

[Salvation]

I figure that Vasa will get the call to go to a very liberal diocese and reform it. It will definitely be Oregon’s loss.

[Salvation]

Oregon Ping

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[Salvation]

Ping!

[NancyDrew]

As a Roman Catholic freeper, I would like to say to other Catholics among us that, in this day and age, we should remain orthodox, conservative, and adhere to the teachings of the Church. This, however, does not call for an absence of discernment. We should always be willing to examine the fruits a little more closely than an article in a newspaper. In Vasa’s eight years in the diocese, how many vocations/ordinations? Look at the words a man speaks about himself. In this article for instance, Vasa is quoted “...I’ve found a kind of holy boldness.” The words spoken, the stances taken are all correct and yet those who are closer to this diocese and this Bishop might encourage you to take a closer look before encouraging his elevation to Cardinal just yet.

1 Corinthians 13
1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
5 it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
10 but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
13 So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.