Dear Freddie:

Your friend is incorrect. The Ten Commandants apply to all time and to all people, thus from it, and many other passages, we are not to be worshiping anything or anyone but the True God.

It is correct that God asked the Israelites to create graven images, such as the Seraphim on top of the Ark of the Covenant. This disproves many Protestants' contention that the use of statues in the Catholic Church is a violation of what they say is the Second Commandment (is is actually a second paragraph of the First Commandment).

The Ten Commandments does not prohibit graven images, it prohibits the worship of graven images.

At the time worship of statues was a problem, as exampled by the people crafting a golden calf to worship while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments.

Had God given us the Ten Commandments today, the paragraph that we are not to worship graven images would have probably read that we are not to worship sports (which is a particular problem of today).

The Catholic Church uses statues and artwork to teach the faith to those who could not read. It has only been a couple hundred years that very many people know how to read. The artwork in the Churches in the previous centuries provided the illiterate of the time a very large picture book that gave them the story and information about the faith.

Today, the statues help us to lift our minds to God. We do not worship them, we worship God alone, but the statues, like paintings and photographs, lift our minds heavenward. God created us as Sacramental people. That means that He created us in a way that we relate to the world through our senses. That is a reason for all the "smells and bells" during Holy Mass.

Thus, the statues and artwork help us envision our Lord and the Saints as we petition them in our prayers. That is all that it does. If we kneel before a statue, we are not whipping the statue, but kneeling before God.

I hope that helps.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary