And While We're Discussing the Catholic Church in Arizona

Remember the nun who got booted from the Mother Church for having the audacity to value a woman's life to the extent of authorizing an abortion to end a pregnancy that was virtually guaranteed to kill both the woman and her 11-week-old embryo? Nothing new to report except that a pro-life group in Virginia is asking people to send letters of support to fucktard Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmstead.

Olmsted has come under criticism for his swift excommunication of Sister Margaret Mary McBride, a longtime administrator at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix after she authorized an abortion for a 27-year-old woman.

McBride apparently had learned that the pregnancy would be fatal to both the woman and the baby if carried to term. The woman was 11 weeks pregnant. The abortion occurred in December 2009.

Critics have noted that none of the Roman Catholic priests in Arizona who have been disciplined and/or defrocked for sexual abuse (including rape) have been excommunicated.

I got nuthin' else to add. Oh, except that the Arizona Daily Star has some of the most vile commenters on the planet. Almost as vile as the Church's apologists.

"The direct killing of an unborn child is always immoral, no matter the circumstances, and it cannot be permitted in any institution that claims to be authentically Catholic," the Population Research letter says.

The Catholic Physicians Guild of Phoenix is also backing Olmsted's decision.

In a question and answer press release distributed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, diocese officials say abortion is never permitted "as an end or as a means."

Sister McBride, "automatically excommunicated herself from the church," Phoenix diocese officials say.

Can the rest of us would-be escapees get in on that action?