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Kosta, are you a Roman Catholic? Roman Catholics do not venerate icons. That is an Eastern Orthodox custom

No, but I have been called "worse." (just kidding) :)

Latin iconography ended around 14th century AD, so it it very much part of the Catholic practice, although it may be less emphasized than it was up to 600 years ago. There is nothing exclusively Eastern about icons or veneration of icons.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

"The Seventh General Council (Nicaea II, 787) had laid down the principles, established the theological basis, restrained the abuses of image-worship. That council was accepted by the great Church of the five patriarchates as equal to the other six. Without accepting its decrees no one could be a member of that church, no one can today be Catholic or Orthodox."

The Council states

"For as often as they are seen in their pictorial representations, people who look at them are ardently lifted up to the memory and love of the originals and induced to give them respect and worshipful honour (aspasmon kaitimetiken proskynesin but not real adoration (alethinen latreian) which according to our faith is due only to the Divine Nature. So that offerings of incense and lights are to be given to these as to the figure of the sacred and lifegiving Cross, to the holy Gospel-books and other sacred objects in order to do them honour, as was the pious custom of ancient times. For honour paid to an image passes on to its prototype; he who worships (ho proskynon) an image worships the reality of him who is painted in it" (Mansi, XIII, pp. 378-9; Harduin, IV, pp. 453-6)." [Catholic Encyclopedia]

The final deifnitions have been set by the Seventh Ecumenical Council (aka Second Nicene Council, 8th century) and remain unchanged in both Churches.

As far as making images of God the Father not being allowed, from the Catholic Catechism

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.27

In other words, only the image of the Son can be made because of his humanity, period. All other paintings of God, whether the Father, the Holy Spirit or the Word in his divinity, are blasphemy.

MarineMomJ, perhaps I should be asking you if you are Catholic?

“”1159 The sacred image, the liturgical icon, principally represents Christ. It cannot represent the invisible and incomprehensible God, but the incarnation of the Son of God has ushered in a new “economy” of images:

Thank you,dear Kosta.

Pope John Paul ll addressed some of this as well in this Apostolic letter

DUODECIMUM SAECULUM
TO THE EPISCOPATE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
ON THE OCCASION OF THE 1200th ANNIVERSARY
OF THE SECOND COUNCIL OF NICAEA
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19871204_duodecim-saeculum_en.html

In breaking with the authentic tradition of the Church, the iconoclast movement considered the veneration of images as a return to idolatry. Not without contradiction or ambiguity, they forbade representations of Christ and religious images in general but continued to allow profane images, in particular those of the Emperor with the signs of reverence that were attached to them. The basis of the iconoclast argument was of a Christological nature. How was it possible to depict Christ, who unites in his person, without confusing or separating them, the divine nature and the human Nature? To represent his unfathomable divinity would be impossible; to represent him in his humanity would only be to divide him, to separate the divinity and humanity in him. To choose one or the other of these options would lead to the opposed Christological heresies of Monophysitism and Nestorianism. For, in trying to represent Christ in his divinity, one would necessarily have to absorb his humanity; in showing only a human picture, one would hide the fact that he is also God.

9. The dilemma posed by the iconoclasts involved much more than the question of the possibility of Christian art; it called into question the whole Christian vision of the reality of the Incarnation and therefore the relationships of God and the world, grace and nature, in short, the specific character of the “new covenant” that God made with humanity in Jesus Christ. The defenders of images saw it well: according to the Patriarch of Constantinople, Saint Germain, an illustrious victim of the iconoclast heresy, it is “the divine economy according to the flesh”(31) that was being questioned. For, to see represented the human face of the Son of God, “image of the invisible God,” (Col. 1, 15), is to see the Word made flesh (cf. John 1, 14), the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (cf. John 1, 29). Therefore art can represent the form, the effigy of God’s human face and lead the one who contemplates it to the ineffable mystery of God made man for our salvation. Thus Pope Hadrian could write: “By means of a visible face, our spirit will be carried by a spiritual attraction towards the invisible majesty of the divinity through the contemplation of the image where is represented the flesh that the Son of God deigned to take for our salvation. May we thus adore and praise him together while glorifying in spirit this same Redeemer for, as it is written, `God is Spirit,’ and that is why we spiritually adore his divinity.”(32)

Hence, Nicaea II solemnly reaffirmed the traditional distinction between “the true adoration (latreia)” which “according to our faith is rendered to the unique divine nature” and “and the prostration of honor (timetike proskynesis) “which is attributed to icons, for “he who prostrates before the icon does so before the person (hypostasis) who is represented therein.”(33)

Therefore the iconography of Christ involves the whole faith in the reality of the Incarnation and its inexhaustible meaning for the Church and the world. If the Church practices it, it is because she is convinced that the God revealed in Jesus Christ has truly redeemed and sanctified the flesh and the whole sensible world, that is man with his five senses, to allow him to be ever renewed in the image of his creator (cf. Col. 3, 10).

IV.

10. Nicaea II sanctioned the tradition according to which “venerable and holy images, done in color, mosaics and all other appropriate materials, of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ as well as those of Mary Immaculate, the Holy Theotokos, the honorable angels and all holy and pious people are to be exposed in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, on the walls and on the floors, in the houses and in the streets.”(34) The doctrine of this Council has nourished the art of the Church in the West as much as in the East, inspiring works of sublime beauty and depth.

In particular, the Greek and Slav Churches, basing themselves on the works of the iconodulous theologians Saints Nicephorous of Constantinople and Theodore Studite, considered the veneration of icons as an integral part of the liturgy, like the celebration of the Word. Just as the reading of material books allows the hearing of the living word of the Lord, so also the showing of the painted icon allows those who contemplate it to accede to the mystery of salvation by the sense of sight, “What on the one hand is represented by ink and paper is represented on the other hand in the icon, thanks to the various colors and other materials.” (35)

In the West, the Church of Rome distinguished herself by the unbroken continuity of her action in favor of images,(36) especially at the critical moment between 825 and 843, when both the Byzantine and Frankish Empires were hostile to Nicaea II. At the Council of Trent the Catholic Church reaffirmed the traditional doctrine against a new form of iconoclasm that was then manifesting itself. More recently, Vatican II recalled with sobriety the permanent attitude of the Church regarding images (37) and sacred art in general.(38)

11. Over the past several decades we have observed a resurgence of interest in the theology and spirituality of Oriental icons, a sign of the growing need for a spiritual language of authentically Christian art. In this regard, I can only invite my brothers in the episcopate to “maintain firmly the practice of proposing to the faithful the veneration of sacred images in the churches”(39) and to do everything so that more works of truly ecclesial quality may be produced. The believer of today, like the one yesterday, must be helped in his prayer and spiritual life by seeing works that attempt to express the mystery and never hide it. That is why today, as in the past, faith is the necessary inspiration of Church art.

Art for art’s sake, which only refers to the author, without establishing a relationship with the divine world, does not have its place in the Christian concept of the icon. No matter what style is adopted, all sacred art must express the faith and hope of the Church. The tradition of the icon shows that the artist must be conscious of fulfilling a mission of service to the Church.

Authentic Christian art is that which, through sensible perception, gives the intuition that the Lord is present in his Church, that the events of salvation history give meaning and orientation to our life, that the glory that is promised us already transforms our existence. Sacred art must tend to offer us a visual synthesis of all dimensions of our faith. Church art must aim at speaking the language of the Incarnation and, with the elements of matter, express the One who “deigned to dwell in matter and bring about our salvation through matter” according to Saint John Damascene’s beautiful expression.(40)

The rediscovery of the Christian icon will also help in raising the awareness of the urgency of reacting against the depersonalizing and at times degrading effects of the many images that condition our lives in advertisements and the media, for it is an image that turns towards us the look of Another invisible one and gives us access to the reality of the eschatological world.

12. Beloved brothers, In recalling the pertinence of the teaching of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, it seems that we are sent back to our primordial task of evangelization. The growing secularization of society shows that that it is becoming largely estranged from spiritual values, from the mystery of our salvation in Jesus Christ, from the reality of the world to come. Our most authentic tradition, which we share with our Orthodox brethren, teaches us that the language of beauty placed at the service of faith is capable of reaching people’s hearts and making them know from within the One whom we dare to represent in images, Jesus Christ, Son of God made man, “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13, 8).