Bishop Lindsay Urwin, Administrator of the Shrine of our Blessed Lady at Walsingham (an Oz), has sent his thoughts about the pedophile business to all who are Priests Associate of the Holy House. He writes: "There is little doubt that those who see young people primarily as an economic target group deliberately raise their sexual awareness in order to attract their purchasing power ... It won't do for society to think it is protection enough to simply hunt down and punish the individual abusers of children, while ignoring the more subtle, frighteningly acceptable forms of the corporate manipulation of the young that exist today".
He quotes a couple of Oz sociologists: "Being sexy is cool, and that's why even prepubescent girls are being sexualised. The Olsen sisters, who visited Australia in 2003 became famous as cute 5 year old twins in a US sitcom before growing into pouting teenager entrepreneurs promoting sexy lingerie, including matching padded bras and panties to their 6 yo 12 year old fans".
Snap! I noticed, the very same day, at our petrol filling station, the headline of the Sun Newspaper: "PEDO BIKINI TOP". It was about those who sell padded bikini tops to seven year old girlies. That newspaper is a "tabloid" produced by an Oz Press Baron called Murdoch. Bully for Oz, I thought. If an Oz bishop can persuade an Oz tycoon that it is feasible to get the British less-than-literate-classes thinking about the connection between the sexualisation of the young and pedophilia, perhaps there is hope for us.
Then I went to my doctyor for a routine check-up. In the Nurse's Room was a a calendar provided as advertising material by a Pharmaceutical firm. "X IS A SAFE CONTRACEPTIVE ... X CURES YOUR ACNE", it said. QED. At what age, I wondered, do tiny girls suffer from acne?
Bishop Lindsay concludes with another Oz quote: "If adults who are sexually attracted to children are called paedophiles, what do we call adults who set out to make children sexually attractive? Advertising executives".
I wonder if the Dawker is planning the arrest and prosecution of large swathes of industry, PR, Entertainment, and Advertising, for their role in the sexual corruption of the young? And, if not, why not?
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Good for Bishop Urwin! The sexualization of society has crept closer and closer to its youngest members and the world of fashion and advertising has much to answer for – not to mention assorted governments pushing ‘sex education’ for increasingly younger children. Parents too, have some responsibility in this as they relentlessly promote their young daughters in ‘beauty contests’ or in sports - like gymnastics – when they are barely out of the cradle!
And it is not just in secular matters where this is evidenced. When my daughter made her First Holy Communion over twenty years ago I was scandalized to see how some parents dressed their daughters for it: sheath white dresses, off the shoulder, which looked more appropriate for a cocktail party than a religious ceremony – not to mention entirely inappropriate for girls of such tender years.
There is much blame to go around, but one expects that people of Faith would demonstrate more enlightenment, prudence and modesty.
Er...Father, what is "Oz" in this context?
I was wondering when someone would get closer to the root of the problem.
Thank you, Father... and thanks to Bishop Urwin.
I think it refers to a large land identified by a Captain Cooke. Since it was quite far South, he or someone else used the neuter plural of the Latin adjective 'australis': 'australia' means 'the southern things'.
Oh…that Oz!
My confusion came from your appending “an Oz” after Walsingham - thinking it referred to the place and not the bishop. As I was quite sure Walsingham had not been transported to the Southern Hemisphere, I assumed the ‘Oz’ in this case referred to something else, probably of Oxonian derivation…
Of course, here in the former colonies ‘Oz’ usually refers to a movie about some Wizard of that ilk. Funny thing, language.
"Oz" also helps as an aide memoire for pronouncing two shibboleths: Australia ("o-" not "aw-"), and likewise my own fair city, the antipodean Launceston ("lon-" not "lawn-", and three syllables, not two as for the Cornish original), whose right name nearly all outsiders get wrong.
I assume that back Home (a nostalgic if almost-extinct Australian term for the UK; a friend of mine still used it despite her family having sailed south in the 19th C.), nearly every town and hamlet has plenty of placenames utterly impossible to pronounce aright without local knowledge...
I recall that a "staurotheotokion" (or "stavro-" if preferred) is a Byzantine troparion in honour of Our Lady at the foot of the Cross; what's the proper term for a troparion about both the Cross and the Resurrection? I can't seem to remember it, annoyingly.
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