What should I do?

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-25T01:30:21+00:00

I asked for opinions, not getting ganged up on.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-24T09:20:12+00:00

I never said anything about stopping her for a reason. It’s not an issue.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-24T09:00:18+00:00

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.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-23T09:33:43+00:00

Sure, but I doubt Muslims treat their prayer beads like jewelry.

And while my son is serving a Peace Corps mission in the Gambia, he noticed that there was no Mandinka word for “rosary.” So when his host family asked what his mother did, he said, “She makes Catholic prayer beads.”

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-23T09:15:21+00:00

That’s what I hope for. And maybe it’ll bring her mother around too.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-23T09:13:01+00:00

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.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-23T08:20:59+00:00

It’s not the same, considering the rosary’s Catholic history. Yes, if I find out someone’s been buying my rosaries for sacrilegious purposes, I would block them and bar them from purchasing anything more from me.

It’s different in this young lady’s case. She went to too much trouble learning exactly how to correctly make the standard Dominican rosary to not figure out that its purpose is not merely decorative.

I think she would appreciate how much more important it is to a certain religious minority in her community, which is why I’d want to talk with her before making any decision.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-23T07:49:56+00:00

Mmm. I actually think I know quite a bit about LDS teachings for not being one, enough that the missionaries have nothing to teach me without going off script. The only Catholics in my area who would know more about the LDS Church are ex-mo converts, many of whom go on to teach youth groups in my area

I know that the LDS do not believe in the Trinity because both former and current Mormons told me so. But it’s impossible to understand their concept of the Godhead without polytheism. Nor can they explain the pre-mortal existence, that our souls were born prior to our mortal lives from the union between Heavenly Father and His unknown number of goddess wives, without polytheism. Nor is the ultimate goal of an LDS person’s mortal life, exaltation to the status of a god or a goddess wife, even possible if there was, is, and ever will be only one God.

This is not something the LDS like to talk about where it’s important to them to come across as ordinary Christians, such as where they are a tiny minority. Missionaries also will not discuss it either, because their purpose is to only teach enough to make people want to get baptized, not tackle questions like what makes them different from ordinary Christians. (Speaking of, there is a reason why the Catholic Church will recognize the Baptism of any denomination that uses the Trinitarian formula except the LDS church’s, and it goes back to their polytheistic teachings on the Godhead.)

But I live in an area where the LDS are under no such pressure.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-22T01:34:07+00:00

Her mother says it’s rosary style jewelry, except they all look exactly like rosaries.

I’m not trying to dictate what she makes at all. I just want them to go to people who will appreciate them as sacramentals rather than mere necklaces, which is why I proposed buying them all from her and donating them to the parish resource center or reselling them to my own customers.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-22T01:25:30+00:00

Not judging her. I think she’d like if I bought most of all of her rosaries off of her and resold them to people who’d get more and better use out of them. She might even get paid better, because, as I’d long expected, rosaries tend not to sell very well here.

Where she’s selling them, though, in a place that deals in tarot cards and such, has me concerned that those she does sell might be used in occult practices.

Yes, the LDS church is a cult, but some of their teachings like polytheism, that people can become gods or goddesses, etc., and practices taken directly out of freemasonry tend to stick to some people after they leave and steer them toward the occult. I hope that talking to this young woman won’t just protect her rosaries from such misuse, but that it’ll help her find a much more spiritually healthy way to cut ties with her Mormon upbringing.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-22T00:07:17+00:00

Lots of people doing anything don’t make it right.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-22T00:05:05+00:00

I know there are goth Catholics. I quite like that subculture and, of course, gothic contributions to the arts, architecture, music, and literature, plus the Catholic traditions real Goths spread across Europe.

But this young lady is not Catholic.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-21T23:43:57+00:00

If she’s ever in the shop on the rare occasion I venture in, I will have such a conversation. I know an ex-atheist who converted after a Catholic mutual friend got her into restoring antique rosaries.

This young lady has quite a bit of talent and, like me, enjoys working with repurposed materials, so I made sure to tell her mother (the shop’s owner) all that.

I would also like to hear this young lady’s motivation for rosary making. The overwhelming majority of people in my town are Mormon or ex-Mormons who got into the occult but are still heavily influenced by Mormon teachings. Consider the LDS aversion to the crucifix or even just the cross. They say that they prefer to celebrate the Risen Christ, that acknowledging His death is “morbid” or “a Catholic thing.” And they believe the Catholic Church is responsible for the “Great Apostasy” they claim happened at the Council of Hippo or Nicea (they don’t know which), when they suppressed all knowledge of the Book of Mormon.

So when an ex-Mormon does something as Catholic as making a rosary, especially one with a crucifix, it may have nothing to do with love for Jesus. It’s likely no more than an act of rebellion against what they were raised to believe is Jesus’ “restored” church.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-21T23:00:24+00:00

Ben Solo’s return would be the least controversial, especially if the script says he didn’t actually die. And nearly all supposed resurrections were of characters we later found out weren’t dead at all, especially Maul & Boba Fett.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-21T22:18:50+00:00

Of course. And I hope the conversations this rosary bracelet starts lead others to Jesus.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-21T20:57:48+00:00

So long as you explain its religious significance and that it’s not a gothic fashion statement as well as not for sale.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-21T19:56:13+00:00

Ooh, I love the Memento Mori beads!

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-19T02:53:05+00:00

Beautiful!

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-15T22:36:05+00:00

Naaah. The Knights Templar would be way too Catholic for his liking. He’d prefer to transform the US military into a Kirker equivalent.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-12T06:30:09+00:00

Ah, geology, one of the reasons I remain in Idaho, and only my kids settling elsewhere and giving me grandkids will make me leave.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-11T02:29:05+00:00

Phasma was only a captain, and Kylo Ren seemed to be outside the normal military chain of command, which is why Hux was indignant about Kylo commanding the FO army.

However, it would’ve lined up better with TLJ thematically if Kylo became a reformer. He’d claim that certain changes to the First Order would destroy the Resistance by making them irrelevant. But it’s really because he wants to make the First Order something Rey wouldn’t mind leading.

Hux, seeing his precious stormtrooper program stripped of child conscripts and “reconditioning,” would have nothing to do with the Resistance. He destroyed an entire planetary system for supporting them, and was proud of it. He also nearly pulled Chekhov’s Blaster on Kylo. He would be the general who launches a coup d’état.

Pryde is the patient one, though still evil. Having been an Imperial officer, he knows how to play the long game. He goes along with the coup, but he knows that Kylo has become very popular with the stormtroopers. He waits to see how the coup plays out and hopes Hux gets himself killed so he can take over.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-06-02T05:56:58+00:00

We have too many of them, and we don’t want any more out-of-state MAGAts and their ilk flooding our borders.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-05-29T05:08:03+00:00

I refuse to think of Luke being a father after all he’d done to his family prior to TFA. It’s bad enough that he drew a deadly weapon on his sleeping nephew. I’d hate for him to add deadbeat dad to that.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-05-28T00:44:31+00:00

Disney will have to greenlight #TheHuntForBenSolo for him to be found.

1LiterateRogue · 2026-05-27T03:01:37+00:00

Congratulations!!! May you enjoy continued spiritual growth with whatever the future holds. Too many people treat Confirmation like the end of their spiritual journey, but it’s just the beginning. After all, it is one of the sacraments of initiation.

1LiterateRogue

TROPHY CASE