Texas High School Student Told Rosary Is 'Gang Symbol'

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jc-servant said:
It only has one decade of beads, but you can use it to say as many decades as you like. Most people don’t carry a full rosary around anyway because I only see ones with 5 decades of beads rather than 15 or now 20 with the Luminous mysteries. I say a full rosary by going around my bracelet rosary many times. I also use my fingers to pray a rosary when driving or exercising for example, but many people prefer to feel the beads in their fingers.

BTW, Jesus used many physical items to work miracles when He clearly did not require anything from this Earth to work them.

A rosary can be a channel for God to give a person grace, so why not be a little more charitable towards the girl and her family and a lot less superior in our attitudes about what she and her family should or should not know or do. The physical rosary would not be providing the girl with peace, it would be Christ working through her act of faith.
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Are you saying the beads themselves can be a channel for God to give the person grace? I have to say this idea is objectionable.
Praying the Rosary can be a channel for God to give grace, not the actual set of beads!:eek:
 
notsmart said:
Are you saying the beads themselves can be a channel for God to give the person grace? I have to say this idea is objectionable.
Praying the Rosary can be a channel for God to give grace, not the actual set of beads!:eek:
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Read the whole paragraph. I said **her act of faith **in wearing the rosary. It can be an outward sign of inward faith just as doing charitable works or evangelizing can proclaim to the world a person’s inner faith. It may be a very small thing for this girl to have her rosary visible, but so is making the sign of the cross in a public restaurant where it can be a witness to others. I’ve had people ask about my visible rosary bracelet which gave me an opportunity to evangelize. We don’t know why this girl is really wearing her rosary, but I would like us to be charitable in our thoughts rather than assuming the worst about her and her family or associations. I believe that condemnation about them makes us no better than the school that jumped on her as if she was a gang member.

Even if I had meant merely the wearing of the physical beads, God can act through the physical with the smallest bit of faith from a person. A woman was cured by touching the hem of Jesus’s garment because she believed in Him and that merely touching the garment and not the man would work. One of the saints converted to Catholism after wearing a miraculous medal given to him while he was not even Christian. (I wish I could remember the name.) The church annoints with blessed oils and and parishioners bless themselves with water, etc. The sacramentals are a part of our faith, so if the thought of God giving grace through physical things bothers you the Catholic faith must disturb you quite often.
 
I live in South Central Texas although I’m not a native Texan. I have seen a whole lot of children ( I work in elementary schools) wear Rosaries. Is it possible that this is a cultural thing? I just feel uncomfortable questioning someone’s desire to wear a Rosary. I have one on my rear view mirror ( was given to me after Mass and is a plastic one so I just got in the car and put it there). I love it now because it is an in your face reminder to me that there are more important things than traffic jams and being late to work. Sometimes when I am waiting somewhere in the car, I will take it down and pray the rosary. Just thinking maybe this girl has the same inclination. Best to give her and her mother the benefit of the doubt.
Personally, working in the public schools, when I see a child with a rosary on, it makes me feel good.🙂 I feel like they are unafraid to express their beliefs and believe me, they know what it is.
Just because someone takes something good and tries to change it to something bad does not mean that we should all abandon it. Maybe that girl is trying to take back the rosary for good and make the gang members stop trying to use it for something bad.🤷

Just some thoughts on this.
 
First off, there is **nothing **wrong with wearing a rosary around one’s neck. NONE. A rosary is something that takes 20 minutes to say and you have 940 minutes in each day not saying it. Why can’t you wear it?

As for gang jewellery, gangs that the school is worried about are not going around breaking the law wearing rosary’s or using a rosary to deal drugs, guns, etc. I’m sure gangs wear underwear as well. Should the school ban underwear because gangs wear underwear?

Now I don’t know if it said this but she was wearing her rosary around her neck but it didn’t say if it was visible to others. The article said, it went off during the metal scanner, which may mean it wasn’t visible. In that scenario, the School most definitely was out of line.
 
childofmary1143 said:
First off, there is **nothing **wrong with wearing a rosary around one’s neck.
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Unless it is prohibited. Then the biblical commandment to be subject to those in authority should take precedence over our preference for adornment.
 
pnewton said:
Unless it is prohibited.
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I am speaking in the context of morality here. Since we are generally talking about whether it is moral to wear a rosary around one’s neck.
pnewton said:
Then the biblical commandment to be subject to those in authority should take precedence over our preference for adornment.
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First off you are assuming she is wearing it for adornment reasons and you can’t infer that at all. Secondly, the commandment to be subject to those in authority isn’t absolute and in this case, it is very unreasonable.
 
childofmary1143 said:
Secondly, the commandment to be subject to those in authority isn’t absolute and in this case, it is very unreasonable.
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That is definitely debatable. Protecting children from the ravages of gang violence is a pretty serious problem. Again, even though it is wrong, gangs do sometimes use a rosary being worn as a gang symbol. Dress codes in school to prevent such showing of colors are totally reasonable. The word “reasonable” means having a reason and a valid reason has been given by the school.

No one is being asked to denounce God, to not pray or act in anyway contrary to anyone’s faith. Where I work, we do not allow rosaries to be worn and are under strict guidelines to protect freedom of religion. Even the local chaplains have agreed the restricting he wearing of a rosary violates nothing in Catholic doctrine or even any established Catholic spirituality.
 
pnewton said:
That is definitely debatable. Protecting children from the ravages of gang violence is a pretty serious problem. Again, even though it is wrong, gangs do sometimes use a rosary being worn as a gang symbol. Dress codes in school to prevent such showing of colors are totally reasonable. The word “reasonable” means having a reason and a valid reason has been given by the school.

No one is being asked to denounce God, to not pray or act in anyway contrary to anyone’s faith.
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I don’t think gang violence consists of using a rosary as a weapon. I mean what would they use it as? A lasso? The rosary is a symbol of our Catholic faith. To prevent the wearing of it denies our right to practice our faith. Practicing our faith is so much more than doing what is commanded but what is encouraged. Is wearing the rosary under our clothes any different than wearing a crucifix? Would the school ban that if gangs wore crucifix’s as gang symbols? What if gangs adopted the rainbow as a symbol for them. As you know the rainbow has been “hijacked” by pro-homosexuality groups. Would the school have the guts to prevent homosexual’s from wearing clothing that has a rainbow on it? I wonder?!!
 
childofmary1143 said:
I don’t think gang violence consists of using a rosary as a weapon. I mean what would they use it as? A lasso? The rosary is a symbol of our Catholic faith. To prevent the wearing of it denies our right to practice our faith.
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Again, it is not a weapon (no one says it is) but an identification symbol. Yes, it is also a symbol of Catholicism, but in no way does it deny our right to practice our faith by not allowing it to be worn as a necklace.

Out of curiosity, can anyone here produce one case of Catholic spirituality where a rosary is worn and displayed as a necklace? The claim is made that this action is a practice of the faith. Where?
 
pnewton said:
Again, it is not a weapon (no one says it is) but an identification symbol. Yes, it is also a symbol of Catholicism, but in no way does it deny our right to practice our faith by not allowing it to be worn as a necklace.

Out of curiosity, can anyone here produce one case of Catholic spirituality where a rosary is worn and displayed as a necklace? The claim is made that this action is a practice of the faith. Where?
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Call me Traditional, but I was taught the Rosary is a Sacramental and wearing it is an act of disrespect. It isn’t jewelry. Since I don’t know the culture of this teen, I make no claims to the wrongness, or rightness of this. It could be highly likely, the wearing of the Rosary about the neck is a cultural thing. Personally, to me, it has always seemed strange and disrespectful to do this.🤷
 
We have a similar problem here in Glasgow Scotland too - Thugs here affectionately known as “neds” have used St Christopher rings as a fashion accessory for years I know that some of them wear particularly chunky, large ones to make their punches more harmful. 😦
 
I am a junior high teacher too. When I’m walking around doing my “lunch duty” on the school grounds I sometimes see a kid wearing a Rosary. I ususally go up to them, strike up a chat, and show them mine (I keep it in my pocket). I haven’t had any bad reactions and I think that some begin to see it as an article of devotion and feel a slight affinity with me for identifying with them.
 
Wearing rosaries is a situational problem. Each school must determine for itself if it is being used as a gang symbol and if this presents a threat to student safety. There are few places where it is problem, but they do exist.
 
pnewton said:
Wearing rosaries is a situational problem. Each school must determine for itself if it is being used as a gang symbol and if this presents a threat to student safety. There are few places where it is problem, but they do exist.
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Can you show me any instances where a rosary was used a weapon for gangs?
 
There is an article in the Ask an Apologist section that addresses exactly this–is it or is it not appropriate, and when and how, to wear a Rosary around one’s neck. Personally I think it’s kind of obvious–it’s shaped like a necklace, made of material necklaces are made of, and the most practical way of carrying it without causing damage to it is to wear it as a necklace (I know because of how many times a Rosary has popped being pulled from my husband’s pockets). It’s unfair and uncharitable to assume the girl is wearing it purely as adornment rather than as a tool of her faith. Hopefully her desire to wear the Rosary, to keep it on her person and where she and others can see it and have a reminder of its meaning throughout the day, means she uses it frequently and takes comfort from it even when she cannot actively pray the Rosary. And if it happens to be beautiful as an adornment, so what? My wedding ring is a sacramental as well, blessed and sanctified by a priest, a symbol and reminder of things holy, but I wear it every day and I would be astonished to find a woman who refused to wear her wedding ring because, as a sacramental, it is not jewelry and should not be used for adornment. In that case, women would wear a band of metal slag and a piece of gravel, rather than what we see every day–shining gold and a big ostentatious diamond.

Let the girl wear her Rosary. Don’t give up our holy things to be trampled by swine, protect them and make a fuss and let the authorities know that those gang members are abusing a Catholic holy thing, not that Catholics are abusing gangsters’ symbols.
 
maryjk said:
Its not that it is a weapon. But it can be used as identification. And not Catholic identification.
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Are you suggesting that a rosary is not a sign of Catholic identification? How many Non-Catholics wear it or even pray it?
 
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I think when Casey Anthony got arrested again it was inappropriate for her to wear a rosary.
Maybe if she was praying with it instead of wearing it maybe she wouldn’t been in jail now. Forgive me if that sounded coarse but what a slap in the face.
I found other photos while searching for a photo of Casey wearing a rosary and it’s funny, I couldn’t find any other photos of here wearing the rosary before her child disappeared.
 
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