ANTIGUA
Antigua Sun
Saturday February 04 2006
by Tony Deyal
“I wonder what get into Wendy?” several people asked me, some rhetorically. It certainly wasn’t Casper, the friendly ghost, I thought to myself, grinning smugly as well as knowingly. The Wendy referred to is Wendy Fitzwilliam, the still single Trinidad & Tobago beauty who became Miss Universe in 1998 and who recently broke the news of her pregnancy to a group of schoolgirls at Corpus Christi College, a Catholic School in Trinidad. As a father of four children myself, I think I have a very good idea of what got into Wendy. The real question is what has Wendy got into?
The answer is not just bed, specifically the bed of Dr. David Panton, who is the party in question, known in Trinidadian as “de chile fadder”, and whether he was the party of the first or second part, or if indeed there was a party, is Wendy’s business. ...
In fact, given the growing number of convictions against Catholic priests of all orders and disorders for child molestation and sexual abuse, an unwed mother should not be the primary target at which any Bishopric should cast stones.
I think the Church can help humanity best and contribute to global social development most by having its priests develop, test and use a boomerang that explodes on impact. Of course they must first make sure they get the flock out of the Church so that none of the faithful few would be hurt.
Almost as soon as Wendy finished speaking, the Church issued a Handbook entitled, “Guidelines for speakers at Catholic Schools”. Had such alacrity characterised its response to cases of abuse by its priests, there would have been more handbooks than Brian Lara has runs or the Church has money to spend on settling cases out of court.
The Catholic Church has lost any moral authority it might have had and should refrain from pointing fingers or any other body part at anyone. What it should do is rebuild its credibility through good deeds – talk softly and carry a big smile of forgiveness and forthrightness.