PROVIDENCE — Bishop Thomas J. Tobin’s rebuke of Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani for his support of abortion rights was already a big story. Originating with a column the bishop wrote last week for the diocesan newspaper, it had moved over the wires and on Tuesday was played on page A20 of The New York Times.

Then lightning struck — literally.

During Tuesday night’s Republican candidates’ debate, televised live from New Hampshire, CNN moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Giuliani for his reaction to a bishop publicly — and stingingly — chastising him. Among other censures, the bishop compared Giuliani to Pontius Pilate, who sentenced Jesus Christ to death.

“How does that make you feel when you hear words like that from a Catholic bishop?” Blitzer asked?

Giuliani, a Roman Catholic, began to answer. He’d said just five words when a nearby lightning strike killed the sound. The rest of Giuliani’s response was lost. All that could be heard was an electric buzzing.

When the sound returned, Giuliani quipped: “Look, for someone who went to parochial schools all his life, this is a very frightening thing that’s happening right now!”

Many accounts of the debate mentioned the strangely comic, if not cosmic, moment — and Bishop Tobin was suddenly in great demand. By yesterday morning, the diocese had been flooded with calls from reporters and producers. CNN and MSNBC wanted the bishop to appear on their networks. Local TV and radio wanted him on air. Domestic and foreign Web sites were featuring him. Bloggers were weighing in — some with support, and some, including one who called the bishop “an idiot,” with fingers wagging. Friends and associates were sending e-mails. In the new media age, it was a genuine spectacle.

In an interview in his chancery office yesterday, the bishop, an avid follower of the news, said he was “somewhat surprised” by the reaction. He attributed it to what he called “a perfect storm” of factors. “It was a convergence of a number of circumstances: the fact that it’s a hot-button issue, the fact that the debate was in New England last night and the fact that Rudy is in Providence today. All of that came together just at the right time to create a story.”

Well-known in Rhode Island for his vocal stands on moral and religious issues, Bishop Tobin became the first American bishop in this presidential election cycle to publicly condemn a candidate who supports abortion rights. He follows a group of 12 other bishops who, during the 2004 presidential race, urged priests not to allow Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry, a Catholic, to receive Communion because of his support for abortion rights.

Giuliani says he is personally opposed to abortion — but he does not believe that he, or the government, should impose that view on others.

In his column, which ran last Thursday in the maiden issue of the new diocesan paper, the Rhode Island Catholic, Bishop Tobin wrote: “As Catholics, we are called, indeed required, to be pro-life, to cherish and protect life as a precious gift of God from the moment of conception until the time of natural death. As a leader, as a public official, Rudy Giuliani has a special obligation in that regard.”

The bishop observed that Pontius Pilate personally found no guilt in Jesus, but nonetheless handed him over to be crucified. The bishop wrote: “I can just hear Pilate saying: ‘You know, I’m personally opposed to crucifixion, but I don’t want to impose my belief on others.’ ”

Bishop Tobin, who is nursing a case of bronchitis, said he was unable to accommodate the networks because he had to attend a priest’s funeral Tuesday, and yesterday, facing a full schedule, did not want to rise at dawn for the trip to a Boston studio. But on Tuesday and yesterday, he did appear on local talk radio and TV.

Prominent word of Bishop Tobin’s column first surfaced outside of Rhode Island last week in a posting to Whispers in the Loggia, the Catholic-insider blog based in Philadelphia. By mid-afternoon yesterday, a search of Google News showed hundreds of North American media outlets reporting the story. Several overseas sites had it as well, including zenit.org, which reports Catholic news from its headquarters in Rome. The zenit headline: “Providence Prelate Blasts Giuliani.”

Bishop Tobin was at home watching Tuesday’s debate when the lightning struck outside Saint Anselm College, the Catholic school in New Hampshire where the debate was staged.

The lightning strike prompted lively debate on the talk shows, with several callers — and even WPRO talk-show host Dan Yorke — saying they read it as a divine sign. Bishop Tobin, however, did not go that far. “I guess it could be interpreted lots of different ways,” Bishop Tobin said yesterday, “but I’m sure it was just a coincidence. Maybe it proves that Rudy is just a lightning rod.”

The full text of Bishop Tobin’s column can be read at www.thericatholic.com/rudy.html

To view a clip of the lightning moment, visit: www.youtube. com/watch?v=ibqwKb4cCsg

Whispers in the Loggia is at whispersintheloggia.blogspot. com/

Zenit’s site is www.zenit.org/english/

gwmiller@projo.com