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Yesterday, I linked to Bishop Vasa’s funny (and hopefully accurate) predictions for the new year.  He follows it up today with a great column in the Catholic Sentinel, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Portland and the Diocese of Baker.

We’ve all heard the debate on how to handle pro-abortion Catholic politicians in regard to the reception of Holy Communion.  And I’m sure we all heard about the now famous dust-up (covered extensively by CatholicVote and AmericanPapist) between Bishop Tobin and Rep. Patrick Kennedy a couple of months ago.

This latest column is a great example of a strong movement among Catholic bishops in America – the movement to really step-up and teach the Faith, even in the face of negative coverage from the media.  It’s a wonderful thing to see a shepherd truly teaching all of us, why the Church teaches what she teaches.

Bishop Vasa writes:

“The press would undoubtedly accuse Bishops who talk or even think about excommunication as being tyrannical power mongers but this is unfair. Excommunication is a declaration, based on solid evidence, that the actions or public teachings of a particular Catholic are categorically incompatible with the teachings of the Church. It is intended primarily as a means of getting the person who is in grave error to recognize the depth of his error and repent. A second reason, while somewhat secondary but no less important, is to assure the faithful who truly are faithful that what they believe to be the teaching of the Church is true and correct. Allowing their faith to be shaken or allowing them to be confused when Catholics publicly affirm something contrary to faith or morals, seemingly without consequences, scandalizes and confuses the faithful. This is no small matter. The Church, and particularly bishops, have an obligation to defend the faith but they also have an obligation to protect the faithful. We do not generally see the dissidence of public figures as something that harms the faithful but it has a deleterious effect upon them.”

Could this be laying the groundwork for future “official” actions by bishops throughout the U.S.?

Who knows?  But with another national election cycle looming large, it will be very interesting to see how America’s prelates continue to educate their flocks leading up to November, 2010.

You’ve got to love it when Bishops make sweet predictions about the coming year.

Let us pray that His Excellency is 100% accurate!

The following hoaxes/myths will be exposed in 2010:

Manmade global warming
Atheistic evolution
Relativism is the only absolute
Abortion is “health care”
Nobody can do health care better than the government
A Catholic can be pro-choice
The government will take care of you
How Obama saved America
America no longer needs God

Come, Lord Jesus!

The Most Rev. Robert F. Vasa is bishop of Baker, Oregon.

Last week I wrote:

In New York’s 23rd congressional district, Doug Hoffman is the only pro-life candidate in a race which includes a democrat and an extremely liberal, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage republican. It’s an important race for the national scene, for several reasons.

Let me briefly lay out those “several reasons”:

• NY23 is the only congressional race this election cycle, so everyone is watching it, making the stakes very high.
• The pro-life republican candidate (Hoffman) is gaining far more grassroots support than the liberal, pro-abortion republican candidate (Scozzafava). He is a classic underdog, come-from-behind candidate. Now he has to beat the pro-abortion democrat (Owens).
• if Hoffman beats Scozzafava and Owens, it sends a strong message to the Republican Party about what kind of candidate will win in upcoming elections, namely, one who is strong on “social issues” like traditional marriage and pro-life. It says that “RINOs” (Republicans in Name Only) is not the way to go. People are more passionate about issues and the integrity of their representatives than they are about the letter behind a person’s name.