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ORIGINAL: WesP
I am asking honestly for your reasons. It is not rhetorical, nor is it derogatory.

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ORIGINAL: TheCatholicCrusader

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ORIGINAL: WesP
I am asking honestly for your reasons. It is not rhetorical, nor is it derogatory.

You are? Okay. Read this:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Do_Catholics_Worship_Statues.asp

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ORIGINAL: WesP

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ORIGINAL: TheCatholicCrusader

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ORIGINAL: WesP
I am asking honestly for your reasons. It is not rhetorical, nor is it derogatory.

You are? Okay. Read this:
http://www.catholic.com/library/Do_Catholics_Worship_Statues.asp

Thank you for the link, but that was not what I was asking.

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What About Bowing?

Sometimes anti-Catholics cite Deuteronomy 5:9, where God said concerning idols, "You shall not bow down to them." Since many Catholics sometimes bow or kneel in front of statues of Jesus and the saints, anti-Catholics confuse the legitimate veneration of a sacred image with the sin of idolatry.

Though bowing can be used as a posture in worship, not all bowing is worship. In Japan, people show respect by bowing in greeting (the equivalent of the Western handshake). Similarly, a person can kneel before a king without worshipping him as a god. In the same way, a Catholic who may kneel in front of a statue while praying isn’t worshipping the statue or even praying to it, any more than the Protestant who kneels with a Bible in his hands when praying is worshipping the Bible or praying to it............

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ORIGINAL: WesP

OK. What I was trying to understand is: who are you respecting? The saint that the icon depicts, God, or ?? It is not a question of bowing equals worship as far as I am concerned because I do not think that.

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IV. "YOU SHALL NOT MAKE FOR YOURSELF A GRAVEN IMAGE . . ."

2129 The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: "Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure. . . . " (Deut 4:15-16). It is the absolutely transcendent God who revealed himself to Israel. "He is the all," but at the same time "he is greater than all his works" (Sir 43:27-28). He is "the author of beauty" (Wis 13:3).

2130 Nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim (Cf. Num 21:4-9; Wis 16:5-14; Jn 3:14-15; Ex 25:10-22; 1 Kings 6:23-28; 7:23-26).

2131 Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787 A.D.) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons - of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new "economy" of images.

2132 The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, "the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype," and "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it" (St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto 18, 45: PG 32, 149C; Council of Nicaea II: DS 601; cf. Council of Trent: DS 1821-1825; Vatican Council II: SC 126; LG 67). The honor paid to sacred images is a "respectful veneration," not the adoration due to God alone:

Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is (St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II, 81, 3 ad 3).

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ORIGINAL: rcjames
TheCatholicCrusader

OK, so you may be venerating the person the image repersents, and there remains the distinct possibility that that person being worshiped by you is not in Heaven, but elsewhere.

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ORIGINAL: TheCatholicCrusader

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ORIGINAL: WesP

What is the focus on when bowing before a statue, kissing an icon, etc.? What is the purpose of bowing, kissing, etc.? Is it not to show appreciation, love, or something along those lines?

You know what? In the past I've kissed my wallet picture of my girl when I was thinking about her. So what. You suppose I was worshipping a piece of photographic paper? You fundies really kill me. You just go off half cocked when you see something and you don't even bother to learn what is really going on.

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ORIGINAL: TheCatholicCrusader
When the Church says that a person is in heaven, that is an infallible pronouncement, and therefore true. End of subject.

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ORIGINAL: rcjames
...Please even show history whrere Peter (I think you consider him the first Pope) was infallible.
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