From Catholic World Report:
Bishop Robert Vasa has served as bishop of Baker, Oregon since 2000. On January 24, the Vatican announced that he will 
serve as coadjutor bishop for the Diocese of Santa Rosa, California.
Bishop Vasa, age 59, has been outspoken in his defense of Catholic doctrine and moral teachings, particularly related to the life issues. He made news recently when he declared that a bishop’s authority in his own diocese supersedes that of the national bishops’ conference, and has also voiced concerns over the USCCB’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development.
Vasa has insisted that Catholics who teach or hold leadership roles in his diocese take an oath to express their loyalty to Church teaching, and he also ended diocesan sponsorship of St. Charles Medical Center-Bend over its refusal to support Church teaching on health-related issues.
Bishop Vasa spoke with CWR about these and other topics, prior to his assignment in the Diocese of Santa Rosa. The full interview appears in the February issue of CWR.
You have said that you would not give Holy Communion to a Catholic politician who supports legal abortion. Other bishops do not hold this view. Why do you believe as you do?
Bishop Vasa: It has to do with communion with the Lord. As someone I know said quite well recently, is this what the Lord wants you to do as a Catholic politician? If it isn’t, then you need to be honest and consistent about that and say you cannot claim a unity with the Church—a communion with the Church, a communion with Christ—when your beliefs, behaviors, and actions, particularly in terms of your pro-abortion stand, speak in absolute contradiction to that communion.
Denying Communion to such a politician is not something I would just casually do, though. I would first meet with that individual, offer them a warning, and tell them that their soul was in danger.
Read more of the interview at www.CatholicWorldReport.com...
God bless you, Bishop Vasa! This move is a great blessing for California and a big loss for Oregon. Thy will be done!
Posted by: Deacon Harold | Monday, January 24, 2011 at 10:23 AM
Bishop Vasa has done tremendous good in our diocese and will be greatly missed, but many of us long suspected that he was destined for greater things. May God bless him in his new assignment, and may He guide our Holy Father to find us a new bishop as holy and as orthodox as Bishop Vasa.
Posted by: Elbareth | Monday, January 24, 2011 at 10:28 AM
Can we get one like him in San Jose?
Posted by: Debborah | Monday, January 24, 2011 at 10:50 AM
He is a true shepherd. Thanks be to God!
Posted by: Leo | Monday, January 24, 2011 at 04:58 PM
How disheartening it is to see so many shades and hues in our bishops leadership.
Good shepherding has been converted into a debatable land. By supplying deficiencies with additions of their own unorthodox tendencies so thoroughly opposed to the teachings of BXVI, many bishops further the cause of self interpretation that divides and weakens the unity of our Church.
It is a joy to see that Bishop Vasa has been made B. Coadjutor of the Santa Rosa Diocese.
Gloria tibi, Domine.
Posted by: Manuel G. Daugherty Razetto | Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 08:25 AM