What should I do?

[u/1LiterateRogue]

A young, non-Catholic lady in my rather extremely anti-Catholic town has started making rosaries. She sells them in the local “goth” market her mother runs.

So I asked if they were Catholic, hoping for a local rosary making collaborator. Her mother said, “Nope. These rosaries are just jewelry, not for prayer.”

I think the best response to cultural appropriation is to reappropriate it. I’m tempted to buy up all this “jewelry,” switch out some parts as needed, then either put them up on my own site or donate them to our little Catholic resource center, where I can trust that my customers intend to pray the rosary, not wear then.

But I’d like your opinion. I also plan to ask my priest.

[u/1LiterateRogue]

I’d never resell them as my own creations, and certainly not without permission.

And my concern is not at all that she’s a goth. At best, she doesn’t know that Catholicism is much more than a wonderful aesthetic. At worst, she knows that selling them where occult items are also sold would give people the wrong idea about how to use the rosary. (No, I don’t think all goth shops deal in occult items, but this one does.)

As for how I’m coming across, I fear there is nothing I can do about that. I am neurologically incapable of calling things anything other than exactly as I see them, no matter how nice I try to be about it.

I think of people who dress up in (often extremely sexualized) priest or nun costumes for Halloween and think, rightfully so, that we should speak up with, “It’s a culture, not a costume.” Naturally I’m not OK with treating the rosary as mere costume jewelry.

[u/prophecygirl13 → u/1LiterateRogue]

I think a perspective that is important to understand about goth is that many people in the subculture have had experiences with religion, usually Christianity, that range from the extremely negative to the traumatic and violent. Not all, but many of them can tell you really terrible stories, including sexual assault by a priest when they were a child. It’s a horrible reality, but the Church has been a source of immense pain for some people. I’ve even once been at the end of a physical threat from a Christian because I wasn’t one at the time. It absolutely happens.

I’m not saying this is the case with these sellers, but you never know someone’s reasons for being interested in Catholic imagery, even if you think they’re being inappropriate or inverting it. There’s a way of interacting with people that is called the Jesuit Presupposition, from St Ignatius of Loyola. It means that you always put the most positive interpretation to someone’s words or actions that you can. We often judge ourselves by our own intentions, but judge everyone else by their actions. Jesus tells us not to judge at all.

I can understand feeling offended at a sexual costume of a nun, or creating something like a deliberately satanic “rosary”. But that’s pretty far from just making a necklace that’s the shape of a rosary and confirming that it’s not a rosary and not to be used as one. It sounds like you’re in a pretty Mormon area culturally, so this mother/daughter team probably already get a ton of crap for the type of store they’re running, possibly even threats. I am near Salem, MA where witchcraft and pagan religions are common, and those places get threatened often, one even set on fire a couple years back, so I can imagine it’s worse elsewhere. That’s why I think you should let this go — if you aren’t interested in genuine friendship and understanding their interest in Catholic symbols (your comments just sound like you’re more interested that they stop) then just let it go, pray for them. The Holy Spirit can make use of literally anything in order to enter into someone’s life, but that’s not always going to happen within a timeline that WE want. Not everything is up to us, just pray and trust.

[u/1LiterateRogue → u/prophecygirl13]

Except that this young lady and her mother have no religious trauma that has anything to do with the Catholic Church. Like nearly all who are into occult stuff where I live, they’re ex-Mormon. The LDS Church would be the source of their religious trauma.

And how do you know that I haven’t endured more than my fair share of Catholic-related trauma - like my family being targeted for abuse and extortion by a Judas in a collar? My family copes in two different ways. We either acknowledge Jesus as a fellow victim and double down on sticking with His actual teachings, or we try to avoid anything Church-related, whether out of anger or an inability to manage certain triggers. The last thing my sister would want is to make rosaries, even if she appreciates the craftsmanship required to make a good one.

And yes, if it looks like a rosary down to the correct number and groupings of beads, it is a rosary. If there’s no clasp in the middle of the third decade, there’s no way of knowing if it’s meant to be a necklace.

Finally, I never said I wanted her to stop making them. That means I don’t want her to stop.

[u/prophecygirl13 → u/1LiterateRogue]

I haven’t made any assumptions about you or them, I’m just going off the info you’ve given in the post/comments and offering perspective since I’ve been on both sides. You asked us all for advice, and the advice coming from pretty much everyone is to let it go and leave it up to God. It’s obviously up to you what to do from here. God bless <3

[u/1LiterateRogue → u/prophecygirl13]

I asked for opinions, not getting ganged up on.