BishopAccountability.org
	Wendy's Big Do By Tony Deyal Antigua Sun February 4, 2006 http://www.antiguasun.com/paper/?as=view&sun=281935077507132005&an=152905048802032006&ac=Local “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. Had Dr. Panton been consistent with his surname and kept it as a commandment instead of a patronymic, one assumes the outcome would have more difficult if not different. Perhaps he got misled by the new slogan of the hamburger chain, “Do Wendy’s”. Of course, intelligent women sometimes don’t work out exactly where the male of the species is coming from, not literally or anatomically but metaphorically. Take the story about Senator Hillary Clinton, wife of the ever-loving, cigar-smoking Bill. She went to her doctor because she was not feeling well. The doctor explained that she was pregnant again. She was furious. This would ruin her plans for the Presidential nomination. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She was so upset that she called Bill by satellite phone as he sat in First Class on his way to China. She began to yell and scream at him, how he had selfishly gotten her pregnant and ruined her dreams of making it to the big time. She went on and on. Finally, she ran out of breath and paused. After a long silence, Bill asked, “Who is this?” The fact is, however, that Wendy is not a comic strip character or the butt of a bad joke, but a very intelligent and articulate lady who knows what she wants. She was not kidding when she said she was kidding. It is not a case of ignorance, like the story of the young lady who was told that if she kept on eating sweets she would swell up and burst. When she saw a pregnant woman at the bus stop she went up to her, pointed her finger at the protruding part and said, “Aha, I know what you were doing!” Neither is it the case of the doctor who examined a young woman and when he told the accompanying mother that her child was pregnant, the older woman started berating the doctor, “What kind of quack are you? How do you mean pregnant? My daughter never had a relationship in her life. She doesn’t know any men.” The doctor then went to the window and the young lady’s mother started complaining about his cavalier treatment of her daughter, demanding to know why the doctor had left his desk to stare out of the window. He replied, “The last time this happened, a star rose in the East. This time I want to be the first person on earth to see it.” The point is that Wendy is not like the blonde who stopped using the pill because it kept falling out and she will not ask after the birth, “You sure this is mine?” I understand that her announcement was greeted by what is customarily referred to as a pregnant pause. What followed, however, was typical for the Catholic hierarchy. Had the inquisition been operating still with its flaming hypocrisy, she might have been burned at the stake. One would have thought that pregnancies, virgin or otherwise, would be something the Catholic Church would take in stride. 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. It should also pray for men to get pregnant. That way it will get every woman in the world as a convert. There is a story that one of the Almighty’s early experiments was to have the women bear the children and the men suffer the pain. However, He had to discontinue it when a proud papa to be, all set with his limacol, smelling salts and panadol, waited for the pain to come while the wife, in the next bed, was being attended to by the midwife. Suddenly from next door came the agonised shouts of the male neighbour, “Oh Gosh! Help me! Ohhhh!” * Tony Deyal was last seen answering questions by Wendy and David about pregnancy such as, “Should I have a baby after 32?” No, 32 children are more than enough. “What’s the difference between a nine-months-pregnant woman and a supermodel?” None, if the father knows what is good for him.
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