"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers." - Daniel J. Boorstin

The rain they predicted for last night didn’t arrive. The rain they predicted for today didn’t show up either. On the evening news the weatherman said that’s bad news because it means the storm slowed down. And that means it carries with it even more moisture which it will dump on the greater Phoenix area as it moves through. We shall see, because it started raining about an hour ago and it’s now coming down at a pretty good clip.

Most areas here don’t have storm drains. The water is channeled down streets into canals and washes, and from there into riverbeds that are dry most of the year. When rain falls too fast streets flood because the water can’t flow fast enough. We have a “stupid motorist law” which charges people a significant amount of money if they and their vehicle have to be rescued from a clearly flooded intersection.

A really heavy rain can be a legitimate news story in the desert because the terrain and ground can’t handle a sudden deluge.

My cold is lingering way too long. No energy. Unfortunately I seem to have shared it with Pam who is starting to experience the symptoms. Worse, she has to work a 12-hour shift both tomorrow and Friday. The “census” at the hospital usually drops before major holidays like Christmas so we’re hoping she has slow days or - better yet - gets called off.

Several months ago a woman seven months pregnant was rushed to St. Joseph’s Hospital here with Severe Pulmonary Hypertension. No one argues that the only way to save her life was to terminate the pregnancy, which the medical staff at the hospital did. Problem: St. Joseph’s is a Catholic hospital and the abortion violated canon law. Thus began a battle between the bishop of the Phoenix diocese and hospital administrators.

Bishop Olmsted almost immediately declared the hospital administrator, Sister Margaret McBride, excommunicated. That’s apparently an automatic for anyone who participates to any degree in an abortion. Yesterday Bishop Olmsted decreed that the hospital can no longer call itself a Catholic hospital. They are cut off as an approved entity. Practically speaking that doesn’t mean a whole lot. They can no longer have mass at the hospital nor be in possession of the “Blessed Sacraments” - the sanctified wine and wafers. Other than that, St. Josephs, a part of Catholic Healthcare West, will continue to function as before.

In his letter to the hospital administrators Bishop Olmsted stressed the hospitals refusal to submit to the direction of the diocese. That is, they didn’t dismiss Sister McBride. He added that he’s since learned about other deviations from Catholic teaching in the area of reproduction at the hospital.

Official church policy allows for medical procedures necessary to save the life of the mother that indirectly result in the death of an unborn child, like radiation treatments for uterine cancer. But you can’t take the child to save the mother.

I consider myself fully committed to the sanctity of all life, including the unborn. But assuming the facts are as reported, and no one has challenged them, the Bishop’s actions seem to me more than a bit Pharisaical. If not for the abortion both mother and child would have died. To Bishop Olmsted that would have been a preferable outcome. I fail to see any biblical logic behind that position. Like the Pharisees, manmade rules and regulations that go well beyond anything in Scripture are here applied without grace or compassion.

I want life to be neat and tidy, for all moral and ethical issues to have a clear delineation between right and wrong. Alas, that’s just not the case. And in a world exploding with technological and medical advances that line will get increasingly blurry. But this doesn’t even seem to be one of those. Everyone agrees that both mother and child would have died except for what can legitimately be called a therapeutic abortion. But for the legalist, outcomes are irrelevant. The rules reign supreme.

And legalists aren’t confined to the Roman Catholic Church. Their presence within evangelicalism and within fundamentalism is longstanding. And just as damaging to the cause of the gospel of God’s love and grace.