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What is the difference between a buddhist prayer beads and a Catholic rosary?

About ten bucks, depending on where you buy them. :-)

Excellent question. For starters, one is Buddhist and one is Catholic. It sounds like I'm being a smart aleck, but that really is the point. A christian has a path to greater relationship with Christ mapped out, and He even taught us how to pray. If a catholic takes their rosary beads and says, "Time for Buddhist meditation" they are leaving that path, no matter what kind of beads are in their hands.

Both are tools to help one remember prayers, but the view of Christian orthodoxy is that the prayers couldn't be more different.

True but in terms of instruments of prayer, they're very similar. Buddhism is also older than christianity. Some people believe that they once had contact with eachother. I'm very interested in this because my sister is a buddhist and I am a Roman Catholic as much as I can call myself one since I do not attend church services often.

The four spiritual laws, Christian style: "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life."

The four spiritual laws, Buddhist style: "Buddha loves you and has a wonderful plan for the extinction of your ego." :-)

Both are tools to help one remember prayers, but the view of Christian orthodoxy is that the prayers couldn't be more different.

Yes that's true but your missing some of the point there is zen and there is zen buddhism. Zen can be lifted out of its buddhist context because it is a mechanical and physiological technique. From there one can place the scaffolding of christian themes and questions. This can lead you to greater insight in christianity. It doesn't replace prayer it would be something you use along side of prayer. This would be analagous to the gregorian chanting that monks do. Certainly it is a type of prayer but not one that Christ talks about in the bible. It has a different mechanism of action and incorporates different parts of the brain.

Also buddhist prayer beads are not used in Zen meditation. It is really just a technique for breathing and trying to hold spurious thoughts in check. The operative phrase is in check. Spurious thoughts occur but as one becomes more focused on what they concentrating on those spurious thoughts happen less and less.