Catholic Idol Worship

As much as the so called "Catholic Haters" would like to believe, I do not wake up every morning and sacrifice a goat or a sheep to the statue of St. Francis out in my garden. I don't. This topic comes from a very long and terrible debate on a certain web video that I commented on...as you can probably guess, I eventually ended the debate because the other party ran out of reasons why we, Catholics, must be idol worshipers and soon changed the focus of the debate to anything ranging from Confession to the Papacy. After viewing the user's profile, I discovered that (s)he is a serial anti-catholic comment-er, dispensing a large number of lies throughout this one site. 


At one point in this debate I pointed out the fact that yes, we reverence the statues, because in turn we honor the person it represents. This is why you will see countless processions with our Holy Mother...it is because we believe that we are honoring her, through honoring this statue. This does not mean that as Catholics we put the statue above that person (the statue can break...and we'll just build another one or fix it), and we do NOT I repeat, we do NOT believe that it is a god of some sort. An idol is, by definition, an image used as an object of worship...or a god. Last I checked, the statue I have in my garden or the statue of the Blessed Virgin, does not fit into either of these categories. We as Catholics worship God alone, who is made present through the Holy Trinity (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). Period, end of discussion. We do, however, honor the saints and the Blessed Virgin. But that's it, we honor them and plead for their intersession. There is a huge disconnect between the words "honor" and "worship". 


Let me examine the two (relevant) definitions to the word "idol" in depth. 

• A. "an image used as the object of worship". The phrase that needs to be examined is "the object of worship". In order for something to be the object of worship, the praises must stop at that thing. However, with these statues the HONOR goes to the saint and then in turn our worship and praise goes to God, alone. That saint is not God, only God is God. We honor those holy men and women who have gone before us to remember their legacy and recognize that they are one of our many role models. Of course this is where people stand up and shout, "Jesus is the only role model!" I agree that Jesus is a role model, but he is not the "only" role model. He is one of the greats though! But the saints who strove to be Christ-like and in many cases succeeded in giving the modern man a way to live Christ's love. Christ gave us the map, but we will get lost without guides. Just as a math teacher teaches a student how to count, the saints teach us how to show God's love in our lives. We in turn believe that through a series of miracles which occur after the saint's death (usually the miracle occurs when the person who receives the miracle asks for that person's intersession) that that particular person is in heaven. These miracles cannot be scientifically explained, this is why it takes so long for someone to become a saint...because of all you skeptics can't believe without proof, and sometimes when there is proof that it can't be naturally explained, you still refuse to believe. Have faith. Anyway, Since all of these events occur, we believe that we can ask these people for help and we should honor them because of the fact that they were the "doorway" for this miracle. This is why we have statues and prayers for the saints, to honor them and to ask them for help. They are not the source of the miracle, that is God, but they are the doorway.  This is not an article about the existence of saints...perhaps that will come later...
• B. "a false god"...do I really need to say anything else. Catholics worship God alone...I've already made that point. We don't worship the saints. We worship God through the saints, because of course they are the "doorway" for God's love and grace.

So please, don't make the lame argument that these statues are idols. They are just statues, nothing more (they may be blessed, however, and may carry some sort of sacramental importance though). Please debate something else with me, get with the times and read your Bible. If you take a look at God's instructions for constructing the Ark of the Covenant, He demands that cherubim be put on it. And unless God sent a couple of cherubim to earth to be eternally forged onto the ark, then He obviously meant for statues of the cherubim be placed on the ark. Cherubim are heavenly creatures...so are the saints, therefore God did not say to "not make a statue of any kind" which is a common argument among the Catholic Haters. And if they say that, then they have a problem with not only the Church, but with many secular institutions that build monuments of their founders; the government that builds sculptures of certain leaders (such as the U.S. and the Lincoln Memorial to name just one); and artists who try to convey a feeling or idea in their art, which in turn eternally embodies that idea or feeling to the art critic. But hey, haters gonna hate.