I consider it extreme and slanderous when a Protestant constantly accuses Catholics of idolatry because the Catholic Church is sacramental, hierarchical, and liturgical. Catholics are not being accused of being idolatrous because of sacraments, hierarchy, or liturgy, but rather because they erect statues of dead people, light candles to them, pray to the *saints* the statues represent, and bow down before them.
Which said bowing down before images is forbidden by God.
Exodus 20:1-6 And God spoke all these words, saying,“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in 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 on 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.
It seems that the pope never got that message.
Okay.
I admit it.
I worship statues. I believe that all the statues in Catholic churches are gods, and we Catholics bow down and worship them. We believe that these gods in our churches created the universe and the world, and we owe our existence to them. These statues—oops, I mean GODS—are the source of all the graces we need to save us.
We don’t believe in Jesus Christ—but we do believe that plaster images of Jesus Christ will save us.
And we believe that, by putting up a plaster image of Jesus Christ on the cross, we CAUSE THE CRUCIFIXION TO RESUME.
Yes! Yes! It’s all true! Catholics worship plaster! Plaster made the world! Plaster is the source of salvation! Plaster will get us to Heaven! Plaster makes the crucifixion go on forever and ever. And plaster makes the crucifixion happen again RIGHT IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD CHURCH! Every Catholic church has its OWN crucifixion! All of these marvels are made possible by PLASTER!