The issue of images and statues is a very contentious one between Catholics and other Christian backgrounds. They often accuse Catholics of idol worship.
The, issue raises the question of how one can know who is at worship or who is just paying respect or honouring a particular person, saint or entity. The mistake some people make is that they interpret certain actions and gestures as worship. If this were the case, then we all, Catholics, and non-Catholics, would be guilty in one way or another of idol Worship.
When you stand at attention to honour your national flag and salute it, will that not be worshipping a piece of cloth, or worshipping the country the flag represents, if we were to accept the arguments of the critics of having statues in Churches?
Does it also mean that each time a person bows or kneels to pay respect to a deserving person, that person is involved in the act of worship? There are some cultures where one has to prostrate himself before a traditional ruler whenever one come face-to-face with him. Will anyone consider that an act of worship?
You have to be in a person's thought or mind to be able to tell what he or she is doing at any particular time. You cannot read a person's mind from his action, posture or gestures.
Many countries, if not all countries have stiff penalties for desecrating the national flag, or for not honouring the national anthem.
Thou Shall Not.
The Scripture that forbid idol worship are from Exodus and Leviticus
“You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:4-6) RSV
“Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves molten gods: I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:4 RSV)
1. Different Numbering of the
Commandments
This is the foundational point of divergence.
· Catholic, Orthodox, and Lutheran Traditions: They follow the numbering established by St. Augustine. The First Commandment forbids the worship of false gods ("You shall have no other gods before me"). The Second Commandment forbids making and worshiping idols or "graven images" as gods. The prohibition against coveting is then split into Ninth and Tenth Commandments.
· Many Protestant Traditions follow Calvin and other reformers by changing the numbering of the Commandments after the Protestant Reformation of 1517. This is almost one thousand five hundred years since the Catholic and Orthodox had used the same version still in use to this day. They use a different numbering system from the Hebrew tradition. What Catholics call the First Commandment is split, and the prohibition against "graven images" becomes the Second Commandment on its own.
So, for Catholics, the commandment about images is part of the broader command against idolatry, not a separate command banning all artistic representations.
2. The Crucial Distinction: Veneration vs.
Worship (Latria vs. Dulia)
This is the core theological point. The Catholic Church makes a strict distinction between:
· Latria (Adoration/Worship): This is the supreme honour due to God alone—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is an act of worship.
· Dulia (Veneration/Honour): This is the honour and respect given to saints, angels, and sacred objects (like the Bible or a cross). It is a form of great respect, akin to honouring a national hero or cherished heirloom.
· Hyper dulia (Special Veneration): A special degree of dulia offered to the Blessed Virgin Mary as the greatest of all saints.
The Church teaches that statues, icons, and other sacred art are never to be worshipped. They are meant to be venerated. The honour shown to the statue passes to the person it represents, just as honoring a photograph of a loved one is really honouring the person, not the paper and ink.
The making of Statues is one way of honouring heroes by families, institutions organizations, Churches and even by Countries. The honour paid to them by people who go to see these statues are never intended as worship.
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a massive sculpture in the Black Hills of South Dakota, featuring 18.0 metre tall faces of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln carved into the granite mountainside. It is a major tourist attraction in the US that thousands of people visit every year.
There are people who have made lifesize statue of their parents, because of the high regard they have for them.
Institutions, Clubs and Societies make statues of their distinguished members and heroes. The Church cannot be different.
3. Biblical Precedent for Sacred Images
Catholics argue that if the Second Commandment were an absolute ban on all religious images, God would have contradicted Himself. It points to instances where God Himself commanded the creation of images for religious purposes:
· The Bronze Serpent (Numbers 21:8-9): God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it up so that those who looked upon it would be healed. (This is seen as a prefiguring of Christ on the cross).
King Hezekiah destroyed the bronze serpent (originally created in Numbers 21) centuries later because the Israelites had turned the God-given symbol of healing into an object of idolatry, offering sacrifices and burning incense to it (2 Kings 18:4). To end this worship, Hezekiah broke it into pieces and called it Nehushtan, dismissing it as merely "a piece of brass".
· The Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18-20): God commanded that two golden statues of cherubim (angels) be placed on the Ark's mercy seat, the holiest object in Israel's worship.
· The Temple of Solomon (1 Kings 6): The Temple was filled with artistic representations, including carved cherubim, palm trees, flowers, and oxen. The key is that these images were not worshipped as gods. They were used to direct the mind and heart toward the one true God and His actions.
4. The Incarnation Changes Everything
For Catholics and Orthodox, a pivotal moment was the Incarnation—God becoming a visible, tangible man in Jesus Christ. We argue that because God took on a physical, depictable form, it became acceptable and even good to create images of Him to help us contemplate the mystery of His love. Icons of Christ are seen as a confession of faith in the reality of the Incarnation.
5. Historical and Catechetical Use
From the earliest centuries, Christians used art (like in the Roman catacombs) to teach the faith, especially to the illiterate. Statues and stained glass windows were "the Bible of the poor," visually narrating the stories of the Bible and the lives of the saints to inspire the faithful. They serve as reminders and aids to prayer, helping to focus the mind on the heavenly reality.
The Church's Official Stance (Council of Trent)
During the Protestant Reformation, when some groups began destroying statues and icons (iconoclasm), the Council of Trent (1545-1563) reaffirmed the practice:
"The images of Christ, of the Virgin Mother of God, and of the other saints are to be had and retained particularly in temples, and due honour and veneration are to be given them; not that any divinity, or virtue, is believed to be in them... but because the honour which is shown them is referred to the prototypes which those images represent."
In summary: The Catholic Church maintains that the Second Commandment forbids idolatry—the worship of false gods or the worship of images as gods. It does not forbid the creation of religious art used as a tool for veneration, instruction, and prayer, as is supported by biblical precedent and a theology centred on the Incarnation. The sin is not in the statue itself, but in the worship directed toward it, which belongs to God alone.