Questions / Mary and the saints

What’s the difference between devotion and idolatry?

Church teaching

Answered on video by Catholic Answers

Video: What Distinguishes Devotion From Idolatry?, Catholic Answers Live, published Feb 3, 2017. Checked 10 October 2026. Loads from YouTube (privacy-enhanced mode) only when you press play. Watch on YouTube

In short: Idolatry treats something made as if it were God. CCC 2113 Honoring an image is different: the honor goes through it to the person it shows. CCC 2132

The answer, in writing

Church teaching

Idolatry consists in treating as divine what is not God. CCC 2113

Veneration of images is different: “the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype.” CCC 2132

Our words

The real idols today are usually money, power and pleasure, the Catechism says. A statue of Mary isn’t competing with God; your phone might be.

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Related questions

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Sources on this page

How we know · 2 Catechism paragraphs

1. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 2113, 2132 (official text on vatican.va).

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