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49) Catholic teaching on the use of statues and images in worship (L-13)

The misunderstanding and the accusation: Non-Catholics accuse Catholics of

violating God’s “second commandment” by idol worship or the sin of idolatry:
"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" (Ex. 20:4–5); "Alas, this people have sinned a
great sin; they have made for themselves gods of gold" (Ex. 32:31). They interpret the
ordinary Catholics kneeling or bowing before statues and images, lighting
candles and offering flowers as violation of the commandment. They think that
Bible does not warrant any use of statues, images and icons in Christian worship.
They also accuse Catholics of purposely omitting the “second commandment”
(Ex. 20:4–5) from their list of Ten Commandments in their Catechisms to justify
their “idol worship.” In the Old Testament, the Jewish people were taught that
the name of God cannot be pronounced and God cannot be imaged because no
image is adequate to express the Godhead. Before answering this accusation and
clearing the misunderstanding, it is good to remember what the late Archbishop
Fulton Sheen said, “There are not one hundred people in this world who hate
Catholicism, but there are millions who hate what they mistakenly believe
Catholicism to be.” The following explanation and arguments will serve to
remove some of the misconceptions of our non- Catholic friends.

The Catholic explanation: 1) The official Catholic teaching: The Catholic Church
teaches and has always taught that idolatry is a serious sin and a gross violation
of God’s Commandments. Since the days of the Apostles, the Catholic Church
has consistently condemned the sin of idolatry. The early Church Fathers warned
against this sin, and Church councils also dealt with the issue. The
‘iconoclastic’--or 'image-breaking' controversy, resulting from the Manichaean
heresy, broke out in the eighth century. The Imperial [Eastern half of the Roman
Empire] troops smashed images and riots broke out throughout the Empire. In
730 John of Damascus wrote that physical aids to worship were valid because
God took on matter in the man Christ Jesus. In 787 the Church ruled exactly to
what extent images could be used in worship in order to avoid idolatry. The
Second Council of Nicaea (787) spoke against idolatry and against those heretics
(Manicheans) who considered everything material as evil and misinterpreted the
Church’s use of statues and images: “They failed to distinguish the holy from the
profane, asserting that the icons of our Lord and of His Saints were no different
from the wooden images of satanic idols." In the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries the Protestant Reformers stripped Catholic Churches of images, broke
statues and stained glass. The Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566) taught that
idolatry is committed "by worshipping idols and images as God, or believing
that they possess any divinity or virtue entitling them to our worship, by praying
to, or reposing confidence in them" (374). Images of Jesus, Mary and the saints
have been used for decorational and devotional purposes since the beginning of
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Christianity. The Council of Trent explained the practice perfectly. “The images
of Christ, the Virgin Mother of God, and the other saints are kept and honored
in churches not because it is believed that there is any divinity or power in these
images, or that anything may be asked of them or any faith put in them. The
honor shown to them is really being given to the person whom they represent.
Through these images which we kiss, and before which we bow with bared
heads, we worship Christ and not the saints whose likeness they display.” The
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), states clearly, "Idolatry is a perversion of
man’s innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who ‘transfers his
indestructible notion of God to anything other than God’" (CCC #2114).

2)The Bible which bans idolatry sanctions statues and images: The Bible presents
God as commissioning statues and images for religious usage in Exodus 25:18-20;
7:13-51; Ezekiel 41:17–18, 1 Kings 6:23; Numbers 21:6-9 and Judges 17:1-6 and 1
Chr. 28:18–19:1. God commanded the Israelites to make statues of Cherubim.
Examples include Ex. 25:18–20; 1 Chr. 28:18–19 and Ezekiel 41:17–18. In Chapter
25 of Exodus the people are told to make images of cherubim to fit on the top of
the Ark of the Covenant. These images were to help the people understand the
importance of the ark. Exodus. 25:18"And you shall make two cherubim of gold [i.e.,
two gold statues of angels] of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of
the mercy seat.” Exodus.26.1: When He gave instructions for the tabernacle, God
told Moses to weave images of angels into the curtains. 1 Chronicles 28:18-19 –
tells how David gave Solomon the plan for an altar made of refined gold and "a
golden chariot of the cherubim that spread their wings and covered the ark of the
covenant of the Lord." Ezekiel 41:17-18 – The Prophet describes graven (carved)
images in the idealized temple he was shown in a vision. He writes, “On the walls
round about in the inner room and on the nave were carved likenesses of cherubim.”

3) God instructs Moses to erect a brazen serpent on a pole as God’s symbol of

healing: In a plague of serpents sent to punish the Israelites during the Exodus,
God told Moses to "make [a statue of] a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every
one who is bitten, when he sees it shall live (Num. 21:8–9). One had to look at the
bronze statue of the serpent to be healed, which shows that statues could also be
used ritually, not merely as religious decorations. It is when people began to
adore a statue as a god that the Lord became angry. Thus when people did start
to worship the bronze serpent as a snake-god (whom they named "Nehushtan"),
the righteous king Hezekiah had it destroyed (2 Kgs. 18:4).

4) Other objects and acts of veneration and healing mentioned in the Bible
include: Joshua 5:14 – Joshua fell prostrate in worship before the angel, honoring
the power of the Lord God Who had sent His messenger; 2 Kings 13:20-21 –
Contact with Elisha’s bones restored life; Matthew 9:20-23 – A hemorrhaging
woman was cured through touching the hem of Jesus’ cloak; Acts 5:15-16 – Cures
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were performed through Peter’s shadow; Acts 19:11-12 – Cures were granted to
the sick when a cloth that had touched the skin of St. Paul was laid upon them.

Logical conclusions:1) There is no ban on statues and images of beings other

than God: God allowed the statues of Cherubim in the Old Testament to help
people to open their minds and hearts and turn them back to God, which
clearly means that the Old Testament does not forbid the crafting of images of
heavenly creatures other than God. In Catholic art, we create images of the
angels, Mary and the saints; these are not gods, but rather creatures of God,
who help us understand what God has done for us. Sacred images, part of the
culture and worship of the first Christians, are seen in the catacombs (the
underground tunnels serving as tombs). Are these figures idols? No! There is a
spiritual reality that these image represent, while idols have neither value nor
meaning because there is no reality behind them. So let us be very clear: In the
Biblical sense, images of Christ and the saints are not idols because there are
spiritual and physical realities in the glorified bodies of Christ and his beloved
saints whom the images represent. But when an idol is destroyed, nothing
remains.

2) God’s ban on statues and images is only for those made to be worshipped in
themselves: God does not ban the use of images even for religious ritual as in the
case of the bronze serpent. God forbids the worship of images as gods, but He
doesn’t ban the making of images. God doesn’t prohibit the making of statues or
images of various creatures for religious purposes (cf. 1 Kgs. 6:29–32, 8:6–66; 2
Chr. 3:7–14). It is when people begin to adore a statue as a god that the Lord
becomes angry (2 Kgs. 18:4). A Catholic who may kneel in front of a statue while
praying isn’t worshipping the statue or even praying to the statue but to the one
whom the statue represents. God forbade the worship of statues, but he did not
forbid the religious use of statues. Instead, he actually commanded their use in
religious contexts!

3) There is no ban on the “use” of statues and images for religious reasons.
Catholics use statues, paintings, and other artistic devices to recall the person or
thing depicted. Just as it helps one to remember one’s mother by looking at her
photograph, so it helps us to recall the example of the saints by looking at
pictures of them. Catholics also use statues as teaching tools. In the early Church
images and statues were especially useful for the instruction of the illiterate.
Catholics also use statues to commemorate certain people and events, much as
Protestant churches have three-dimensional nativity scenes and use religious
greeting cards, and T-Shirts with the image of Jesus. One good example is the use
of photographs. Protestants may not have statues or images in their churches,
but they have photographs of their loved ones in their wallets, on their office
desks, in their homes. If they got a chance to meet a famous person, they would
at least take a photo with him and have it framed up on the wall. A photograph
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is also a graven image, so is having a photo of granddad on the wall, would be

idolatry, if God had forbidden all making and use of images. If He had, then
religious movies, videos, photographs, paintings, and all similar things would be
banned. What non-Catholics often fail to recognize is the distinction between
thinking a piece of stone or plaster is a god and desiring to remember Christ and
the saints visually by making statues of them in their honor. The making of
statues is a thoroughly Biblical practice.

History of Jewish and Christian representation of God: Early in its history, Israel
was forbidden to make any depictions of God because God had not revealed
Himself in a visible form. Given the pagan culture surrounding them, the
Israelites might have been tempted to worship God in the form of an animal or
some natural object (e.g., a bull, as in fact they did in the desert when Moses was
up on Mt. Sinai with the Lord God, and were punished for it). But later
God did reveal himself under visible forms, such as in Daniel 7:9: "As I looked,
thrones were placed and one that was Ancient of Days took his seat; his raiment was
white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, its
wheels were burning fire." Protestants make depictions of the Father under this
form when they do illustrations for Old Testament prophecies. The Holy Spirit
revealed himself under at least two visible forms—that of a dove, at the baptism
of Jesus (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32), and as tongues of fire, on
the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1–4). Protestants use these images when drawing or
painting these Biblical episodes and when they wear Holy Spirit lapel pins or
place dove emblems on their cars. But, more important, in the Incarnation of
Christ his Son, God showed mankind an icon of Himself. Paul said, "He is
the image (Greek: ikon) of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." Christ is the
tangible, divine "icon" of the unseen, infinite God.

Church history marred by iconoclasm and the iconoclasts: Iconoclasm is the

deliberate destruction within a culture of the culture's own religious icons and
other symbols or monuments, usually for religious or political motives. People
who engage in or support iconoclasm are called "iconoclasts." In the eighth
century a group of Christians in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire started to
object to the use of icons in worship. They were influenced by two heresies--
Monophysitism, which lessened the physical side of Jesus' nature and
Manicheanism, which taught that the physical world was evil. These heresies
made people suspicious of physical things like icons and statues. Soon the
controversy erupted into violence. The Empress sent her storm troops to invade
churches and destroy all religious artwork in God's name. The defenders of
icons were outraged. There were riots among the people while the theologians
exchanged tracts and lobbied the Pope. For over one hundred years the quarrel
raged back and forth. The old argument resurfaced in the Western Church
during the Protestant Reformation when the reformers, anxious to do away
with abuses, shortsightedly did away with all imagery. The debate continues
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today with Christians who are not able to interpret the Old Testament in light
of the image of Christ. The Catholic use of many forms of sacred art, including
statues and pictures of Jesus, crucifixes, and the cross, are consistent with a
theological anthropology that affirms the goodness of matter, and provides a
means by which our human sense of sight and appreciation of beauty can be
engaged in liturgical and devotional prayer.

Origin of the theology of statues and images: The dogmatic foundation for the
cult of icons is the Incarnation. It was at the time of iconoclasm that the theology
of icons was enunciated by St. John Damascene (749 AD). He argued (in
Discourses) that material images of holy things were acceptable because God
clothed himself in matter when he took human form in Jesus. “Previously God,
who has neither a body nor a face, absolutely could not be represented by an
image. But now that he has made himself visible in the flesh and has lived with
men, I can make an image of what I have seen of God…and contemplate the
glory of the Lord, his face unveiled.” (St. John Damascene). The Old Testament
forbade images because in the Old Covenant God had revealed Himself only by
word. In the New Testament, the Word becomes an image by the incarnation of
the word in Jesus. Indeed in Col. 1.15 Paul calls Jesus, the 'image of the unseen
God'. Before the incarnation no images of God were allowed because we were
waiting for the ultimate 'icon' of God--the man Christ Jesus. Now that God has
given us his true image in Christ, the images we make simply reflect back to him.
“For in Jesus dwells the whole fullness of the Deity, bodily…” – Colossians 2:9. “What
was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we
looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life – for the life was made
visible…” – 1 John 1:1-2 . So our images of Christ remind us of Jesus and our
images of the saints remind us that they were living images of Jesus Christ in the
world. So, in other words, we use physical images to remind us that God took a
physical image in Christ and that we are meant to be his icons in the world.
Because God took on this material world in Jesus, we continue to use material
things in our worship. Because He is the creator God, and we are made in his
image, we fashion material things into images which reflect His glory. So images,
when used properly, become physical pointers to Christ--the image of the unseen
God, the one by whom God created the physical world, and in whom all physical
things subsist. When we venerate the image it is a way for us to express love and
devotion for the person the image represents.

Misunderstanding of Catholic expressions of veneration as worship: Sometimes

anti-Catholics cite Deuteronomy 5:9, where God said concerning idols, "You shall
not bow down to them." Since many Catholics sometimes bow or kneel in front of
statues of Jesus and the saints, anti-Catholics confuse the legitimate veneration of
a sacred image with the sin of idolatry. Though bowing can be used as a posture
in worship, not all bowing is worship. In Japan, people show respect by bowing
in greeting (the equivalent of the Western handshake). Similarly, a person can
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kneel before a king without worshipping him as a god. In the same way, a
Catholic who may kneel in front of a statue while praying isn’t worshipping the
statue or even praying to it, any more than the Protestant who kneels with a
Bible in his hands when praying is worshipping the Bible (Bibliolatria)or praying
to it.

False accusation that the Catholic Church hid the “second commandment.”
Another charge sometimes made by Protestants is that the Catholic Church
"hides" the second commandment. This is because in Catholic catechisms, the
first commandment is often listed as "I am the Lord, your God. You shall not have
other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3), and the second is listed as "You shall not take the
name of the Lord in vain." (Ex. 20:7). From this, it is argued that Catholics have
deleted the prohibition of idolatry to justify their use of religious statues. But this
is false. Catholics simply group the commandments differently from most
Protestants. In Exodus 20:2–17, which gives the Ten Commandments, there are
actually fourteen imperative statements. To arrive at Ten Commandments, some
statements have to be grouped together, and there is more than one way of doing
this. For example, Catholics, along with the Jews, and the Protestants typically
summarize the Sabbath commandment as, "Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy,"
though the commandment’s actual text takes four verses (Ex. 20:8–11). When the
prohibition of polytheism/idolatry is summarized, Catholics along with the
Jews, and the Lutherans abbreviate it as "You shall have no other gods before me."
Martin Luther himself recognized that the imperatives against polytheism and
idolatry are two parts of a single command. This is no attempt to "hide" the
idolatry prohibition (Jews and Lutherans don’t even use statues of saints and
angels). It is to make learning the Ten Commandments easier. That is why the
present Catechism of the Catholic Church follows the division of the
Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in
the Catholic Church. (L-13)

Sources and resources:

1) http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac1001.asp
2) http://net-abbey.org/idolatry.htm
3) http://www.holyspiritinteractive.org/library/714
4) http://www.catholic.com/tracts/do-catholics-worship-statues
5) http://www.holyspiritinteractive.net/youth/biblegeek/31.asp