Dear Carlos:

I agree with Father Gareth Leyshon, pastor of St Dyfrig's Catholic Church in Treforest, South Wales, United Kingdom. What follows his analysis of this question:

Three things could potentially corrupt what is apparently a Catholic Sacramental.

• Explicit imagery which can only have a pagan or New Age interpretation;
• Ambiguous imagery which was put in by a designer who INTENDED a pagan or New Age interpretation;
• Some kind of occult ritual being performed over the objects.

The rosaries in question do indeed show a serpent coiled around a pole and have pentagons at the end of the four arms of the cross. I wonder what the designer intended?

In the Book of Numbers, 21:6, God commands Moses to make a bronze serpent on a pole, through which God miraculously heals those Israelites bitten by poisonous snakes. In the Gospel According to John, 3:14, Jesus uses that serpent as a prototype of his own being lifted up on the Cross so that the whole of humanity can be healed from sin. The Numbers reading is the First Reading on the liturgical feast of the Triumph of the Cross, September 14th. We may be rather uncomfortable with a serpent - a Biblical symbol of temptation - being a prototype of Christ Our Saviour; but it is clearly used by Jesus Himself, so it is a legitimate image.

A pentagon has five sides. There are five mysteries in each decade of the Rosary. Christ is traditionally reckoned to have suffered five wounds on the Cross. The circles inside the pentagons form a design which looks rather like roses - appropriate for a rosary. Any or all of these things may have been on the designer's mind when the mould for this crucifix was crafted.

The bottom line: Does this crucifix bear any symbols which are unambiguously pagan or New Age? No.

Does this crucifix have symbols which are totally explainable by Christian traditions? Yes.

Was it the intent of the designer to depict something Christian or something New Age? Only the designer knows.

My best guess, therefore, is that someone has looked carefully at these crucifixes, seen serpents and pentagons, leaped to the conclusion that these must have a New Age explanation, and now their unwarranted concern is doing the rounds of the Internet. If this is the only reason that there is concern about these rosaries, then there is no reason at all to worry.

If any reader has any evidence OTHER than the design that there is some New Age intent behind these rosaries, please contact me in complete confidence and I will revise this advice accordingly.

Another example of this rash judgment about symbols is the upside-down cross. People think that is a symbol of Satanism. It is not. The reason the Catholic uses the symbol of the inverted Cross is because it is a symbol of Peter, who was crucified upside-down.

Some Satanist, mostly in the 20th century may have used an inverted Cross, but the Church had the symbol first. If we were throw out any symbol that the devil co-opts for his own, we will have no symbols left.

Nevertheless, since it is technically possible the person who produced the rosary may have evil intentions, and since you do not know where it came from, what you can, if you wish, is to dismantle the rosary and dispose of it -- such as bury it in your backyard. Any curse or blessing that was attached to the rosary terminates once the rosary is dismantled and no longer resembles a rosary.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary