This question gets declined in every Christianity group I am a part of 😅 I suppose it is considered "blasphemy." In my opinion, that's just all the more reason to ask it! There is nothing blasphemous about asking genuine questions.
I was on a local Facebook group, posting a photo of a church I had seen on my walk, when somebody left an interesting comment: "Leave it to the Catholics to practice idolatry."
(The church that I saw, dedicated to St. Charles)
I was extremely put off by this comment. Idols? JESUS?? He is the begotten Son of God; of course we can worship Him ... can't we?...
We began to discuss things some more. He explained that saints, especially, are merely mortal men. They are the same as you and I: repressed desires and impulses, made mistakes.
For example, St. Thomas Aquinas, who lived during the Middle Ages, declared that 12-years-old was an appropriate age for girls to marry. Obviously it was a different time, but I'm sure that many today would view it as detestable. It is why we cannot practice man's law; only God's Law can withstand the test of time.
So I gave things some more thought... Jesus may be the Son of God, but He never asked us to honor Him with physical symbols. Statues can never be "historically accurate," which means that, in a sense, we are just worshipping a random man. We associate this specific image with Jesus and then worship this man in our hearts; I think this is very blasphemous!
(This is the image that we typically associate with Christ)
God warned us not to put our faith in mortal men, for no matter how righteous a man can be, he will still fall; his innate human nature will cause him to sin. Jesus told us that in spite of all His miracles, all power resides only with the Father.
Both beings instructed us to only follow God's Law, which is the Ten Commandments. And the second commandment very clearly tells us not to conjure any graven images.
Anyway, this whole topic has caused me to completely reevaluate my faith. I was raised Roman Catholic, and now I've come to find out that I was participating in a grievous sin! Our Father told us that only prayers in His name are credible; meanwhile, I was praying to the Virgin Mary my entire pregnancy, up until my miscarriage.
I am told that prayers to the dead are also superfluous, that it can go hand-in-hand with false worship. I have seen people dedicate altars to deceased loved ones, which I think is a bit overboard, but I don't see how talking to loved ones and checking in with them is "idolatry." I think it only has a real impact when that person forgets to live, and instead ONLY focuses on the dead.