What you’re missing is that the pagans BELIEVED the works of their hands were their gods. Catholics BELIEVE that there is only one God, and that Second Person of that God, Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, has a physical body. Catholics do not believe their icons and statues are gods.
I suspect that most . . . maybe even 99.99999999% of RC folks would affirm your statement.
But mental surface assertions and rationalizations do NOT hide the attitude of the heart from God.
No one's missing this, least of all God in heaven. He has told us not to bow down to anything other than Him, regardless of what it is we're bowing to.
So we are not to venerate, worship, adore, sacrifice to, pray to or expect absolution for our sins from anyone other than the Triune God.
This always seemed to me to be one of the easy rules to understand in Christianity, and thus it is so amazing the RCC gets it so very wrong.
Please read the following from Acts 17 and recognize the similar error propagated by the RCC... And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean. (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.) [I love that line] Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." -- Acts 17:18-31"Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him (Paul). And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
The Athenians thought their god was worthy of worship, but as Paul instructed them, unless they NAMED the object of their devotion as JESUS CHRIST, their worship was worthless.
Actually, less than worthless, since their prayers was truly offensive to God who no longer winks at this error, but demands repentance from it.
This is why Protestants cringe at statues of silver and gold, and Mary as co-redeemer, and men who kneel to the stock of a tree, regardless of protests that its made of the finest-quality maple or oak.