How many Catholics do you know who have statues on their dash or in their home or on their lawn? Would any of them destroy those? Would they fear lack of protection if they did? 1 Corinthians 10:14 Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.
1 John 5:21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.
So you think it’s only idolatry if you worship the thing?
Colossians 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
If Catholics would not destroy those objects for fear of reprisal or lack of protection they are indeed idols and have replaced Gods protection.
Why is it that you Protestant vandals cannot think of anything better to do with statues?
There are very many reasons not to destroy anything of value, from quite mundane to the reason that the statue is an image of Mary who we Catholics love, — the reason the statue is there to begin with.
Idolatry is idolos + latreia, idol-worship. Having an image of someone, kneeling in front of it, praying to God in front of it, or talking to the person represented by the image is not worshiping the icon or the statue, but venerating, — or worshiping, as the case may be,— the person whose image it is.
The early Christians lived among true idolaters. They would make sacrifices to their idols, and would be afraid of them. The idolaters today are those who made an idol of money, or “democracy”, or sex. For them, be concerned.
Are there Catholics with superstitions? Yes, sure. We are all human. But I never met a Catholic who thinks that the saints are divine, or that statues are divine. They are just that, images of the divine.