Published: October 7, 2011
“Our shepherd came!”
New Santa Rosa bishop leads 40 Days Vigil
News from the Trenches
By Gibbons J. Cooney
Special to California Catholic DailyMore and more bishops are marching with their flocks in the battle for the Culture of Life, among them Sacramento Bishop Jaime Soto and San Diego Bishop Robert Brom. Add Santa Rosa’s new bishop, Robert Vasa, to that list.
On Sept. 28, Bishop Vasa led the opening prayer at the beginning of the 40 Days for Life fall vigil outside of the Women’s Health Specialists abortion business at 4415 Sonoma Highway in Santa Rosa.
“Our chapter is small,” 40 Days for Life co-captain Judy Parcher told California Catholic Daily. “We were praying, and my husband said to me ,‘Oh my gosh, isn’t that the bishop behind you?’ I turned and it was! I can’t tell you the joy that raced in my heart, and I felt how much love God had bestowed on us with this visit. I thought: he’s so busy… that he would take this time to be with us… our shepherd came!”
Bishop Vasa’s presence at a pro-life vigil should come as no surprise. He has been an outspoken proponent of the Church’s teaching on life issues.
In 2010, as Bishop of the Diocese of Baker, Oregon, Vasa withdrew the Church’s official sponsorship of Oregon’s St. Charles Medical Center because the hospital performed sterilizations. In 2007, the bishop had asked that the hospital to verify its compliance with the U.S. Bishops' Catholic Ethical and Religious Directives for Health Care Services. After discovering the hospital performed tubal ligations, the bishop removed diocesan sponsorship.
On February 16, 2010, LifeSiteNews quoted the bishop as saying: “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.”
The Santa Rosa vigil is bearing fruit.
“Less than 24 hours after the bishop joined us, a young woman, accompanied by a man drove into the abortion business,” explained Mrs. Parcher. “They headed down the driveway, but a little while later she came out. She came up to us and was crying, and said ‘I don’t want to have an abortion. Can you help me?’ We carry lots of information for crisis pregnancy centers and we directed her to one that could help her out.”
