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.
ROFL I don’t believe that for a second. I’ve had Catholics tell me it would sacrilege to destroy those statues.