An op-ed in The Atlantic claims the Catholic Rosary is now a symbol representing religious extremism.
QUICK FACTS:
- Daniel Panneton, a contributor for the Atlantic, claims that rosary beads used by Catholics to pray are now a representation of right-wing radicalism, Fox News reported.
- “On this extremist fringe, rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture,” Panneton said. “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.”
- The writer went on to say that rosary beads “provide an aide-memoire for a sequence of devotional prayers, are a widely recognized symbol of Catholicism and a source of strength. And 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.”
ATLANTIC AUTHOR ON ROSARY BEADS REPRESENTING RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM:
“Social-media pages are saturated with images of rosaries draped over firearms, warriors in prayer, deus vult (‘God wills it’) crusader memes, and exhortations for men to rise up and become church militants,” panneton said.
BACKGROUND:
- Panneton, who is not an American citizen, describes himself as a “Public Historian and Anti-Hate Researcher” and is based in Toronto, Canada.
- The Atlantic writer has also published articles on the trucker convoy and “larger conspiratorial narratives”.
- According to Panneton, the Freedom Convoy, which took place to stand against the mandating of COVID-19 vaccines, “included a motley array of Western separatists, anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, antisemites, Islamophobes and other extremists.”
