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Question: Why do Catholics worship idols, pictures, and statues, and so on: the Bible says "We should not make and worship images" ?? Answer: Well, this question is a little bit complicated. I will read for you the text, the more relevant text from the Bible. You find it in Exodus chapter 20 verse 4 and the following two verses. It is part really of what we call the Ten Commandments. So, God says, "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 th 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 steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." You can see that the text is a very long passage, it covers three verses altogether in the middle of the Ten Commandments. The first commandment is "You shall have no other gods before me", and then there is this prohibition of images immediately after. Now, we have to distinguish between polytheism and image worship. Polytheism really means the recognition of many gods, and very often polytheism is involved in nature worship: worship of the starts for instance, worship of cows, worship of sacred rivers, of trees, and all the rest. So that is nature worship and it is polytheism. Now, polytheism can also take on the form of idol worship. So you can have polytheism without idols, but idol worship usually involves polytheism and there is a tremendous development of the prohibition of idol worship in this passage from Exodus. Now, I would like to point out that we cannot absolutise this commandment even in the context of the Book of Exodus itself. In the Book of Exodes itself, arrangment is made for cherubims. The most sacred portion of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies is described as being adorned with two statues, two images, images of cherubim, these mythological creatures with the heads of human beings, the bodies of animals and the wings of birds. I will read for you the relevant text. It is Exodus 25:19 - 22. The text says, "Make one cherub on one end of the ark, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece with the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be. And you shall put the mercy seat on the top of the ark; and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you." Now, when I go to the Protestant Churches in England, I see that the churches are full of statues. These Anglican Churches are full of tombs and the tombs have statues of the people who are buried here. In spite of the Bible itself saying that we are not to make images, these Protestant Churches are full of images! Now, if I were to say to a Protestant friend, "Why do you have images in your church when God says you shouldn't carve any images?" He would say to me once, "We don't worship these images; the images are there only to represent the dead; they are not here to be worshipped." That is precisely what Catholics say also about their images, "We don't worship images. The images are there to remind us of the saints, to remind us of our Lady, and there is no question then of worshipping them." So the Bible says we should not make and worship images. I would also like to point out a rather technical point. Many scholars today think that these verses 4, 5 and 6 which prohibit images, are a later addition to the Ten Commandments. They argue that originally there was not perhaps such a vehement prohibition of images, but that later on, this became necessary, especially in the 10th, the 9th and the 8th century BC, we know from archaeology that many images were discovered in Palestine. Before that period, there were not many images, and the images nearly always had to do with fertility cults, so, the images really involved the sexual element in worship. The pagans believe above all that the harvest depended on the union between a god and the goddess, and in the temples, this union of the god and the goddess was imitated as it were in ritual, by ritual prostitution. So the images very often forbidden by the Bible are associated with ritual prostitution in the temples, a ritual prostitution that as it were mirrors the eternal mystery of fertility and the marriage of a god and the goddess. Now, it is quite clear from this that when you think of the Catholic images of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and the Sacred Heart, and so on, that they have nothing to do with this sort of religious prostitution, this deformation of religion. So it is very wrong then, I think, to condemn Catholics for having statues and images in their church. Just as in the Protestant Churches in England, you get statues of dead relatives which are memorials of them, so also in Catholic Churches we have statues which are venerated as memorials of the saints, memorials of God. We don't worship idol any more than we worship the Blessed Virgin Mary. (Source: "Questions People often Ask", a booklet dealing with some questions people often ask about our Catholic faith. The answers are provided by Fr. Sean Kelleher C.Ss.R., a well known biblical scholar and writer, based on the questions put by Fr. Paul Pang C.Ss.R.) | Back to Main Page | |