Bishop Vasa, No Compromise on Heresy

Bishop Vasa is not only kind, approachable, wise and courageous, he lives to bring others to Christ.  Sometimes there's kicking and screaming from those where Truth is hard, but he's uncompromising.  Straight talk from our Church is usually lacking and his words bring healing, no matter how foreign.


"In our 'compromising age' we are loath to name something too strongly. If we do, we are accused of harshness, judgmentalism, perhaps arrogance, certainly intolerance and possibly pharisaism.

While it is always necessary to speak the truth with love, the Church also believes and teaches that it is also necessary to speak the truth with strength.

It is necessary to defend truth and not be too quick to rationalize, justify or excuse misleading teachings or teachers . There is a point at which passive "tolerance" allows misleading teachings to be spread and propagated, thus confusing or even misleading the faithful about the truths of the Church.

There is a very strong word, which still exists in our Church, which most of us are too "gentle" to use. The word is "heresy."

We perhaps think that heresy is a thing of the past . We think perhaps of the Arian heresy or the Pelagian heresy or the Manichean heresy. We might even maintain that there are no longer any heretics because that conjures up images of inquisitions and burnings at the stake.

 I do not , in any way, seek to validate or justify any kind of "vigilante" theology , but we do need strong words to combat erroneous and fallacious teaching.”

"Martyrdom is not an exception reserved to a few.....live the Gospel without compromise.” Pope Benedict XVI