The rosary? “An extremist symbol.”

UPDATE: The Catholic League has an amusing PR – the attack on traditional Catholics

To quote the late Fr. Dan Berrigan, “If you are going to follow Jesus you better look good on wood.”

Thanks to our friend Theresa for sending me the link below. If you want to read the full Atlantic article go here.

Here’s the summary –

Atlantic op-ed claims Catholic rosary has become ‘an extremist symbol’. The author claimed, ‘Catholics are a growing contingent of Christian nationalism’

 “Just as the AR-15 rifle has become a sacred object for Christian nationalists in general, the rosary has acquired a militaristic meaning for radical-traditional (or ‘rad trad’) Catholics,” Panneton claimed in the Sunday piece titled, “How the Rosary Became an Extremist Symbol.”

He added, “On this extremist fringe, rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture. These armed radical traditionalists have taken up a spiritual notion that the rosary can be a weapon in the fight against evil and turned it into something dangerously literal.”

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Warning that Catholics are a “growing contingent of Christian nationalism,”… He also commented that as the divide between American Catholics and Protestants has waned, they have become “cemented in common causes such as hostility toward abortion-rights advocates.”

He observed that … many take genuine sustenance from Catholic theology’s concept of the Church Militant and the tradition of regarding the rosary as a weapon against Satan.”

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Warning that Catholics are a “growing contingent of Christian nationalism,” Panneton commented that “Catholic imagery now blends freely with staple alt-right memes that romanticize ancient Rome or idealize the traditional patriarchal family.” He also commented that as the divide between American Catholics and Protestants has waned, they have become “cemented in common causes such as hostility toward abortion-rights advocates.”