St. Agatha…the one carrying her breasts on a platter?
Why is it silly? It is supposed to be like a grotto, and blue is a color associated with Mary. Plus she is queen of heaven and earth, so it’s like the sky around her. A real bathtub cut in half might be silly! 
A saint is a human being who has died and lived an exemplary life, to the point where the Church can say with confidence that they are in heaven. A patron saint can be the saint someone was named after. Or a saint can be the patron saint of a particular cause, profession, struggle, etc., based on what their life was like and what happened to them. The aforementioned Lucy is the patron saint of the blind and those with eye trouble since her eyes were gouged out.
I went to Catholic school in the 1980s and while we didn’t see the graphic statues, we DID get the prayer cards and I guess and the one thing that bugged me about St. Lucy was that while she was holding the dish with her eyes, her eyes themselves were still intact.
Honestly, considering you grow up seeing graphic crucifixes and things like that, I really wasn’t all that phased by various saint’s images. At least to me, it was kind of a "that was kind of “that was how things were BACK THEN.”
My favorites were always St Dymphna and St Damien ----- but I’m a little odd like that.
I have read that some Catholic works eliminate the Second Commandment and split the Tenth (“Thou Shalt Not Covet”) to keep the number at ten.
dougie_monty: Not exactly true. The Bible has two different versions of the decalogue (and it is only tradition that there are “ten” commandments. There are lots of ways the specific declaration can be subdivided.)
The Catholics prefer one of the two quotes; Protestants prefer the other.
The Catholics have not changed the Torah by removing words from it. That’s rather a canard (although you can easily find this charge made on various blogs.) Here is an essentially libelous version, and it was probably something akin to this that you were exposed to. It’s bullshit.
Yep, the very one. Patron saint of women, specially of lactating mothers (this second patronage is shared with Our Lady of Milk).
What *is *it with traditional Catholicism and mutilation?
Ask the Romans. St. Agatha for example, the story is that the dude who had her executed really, really, really liked her tits so he had them cut off. Similar story for St. Lucy, only in her case the guy really, really, really liked her eyes. St. Katherine was executed on a wheel of knives, St. Lawrence got roasted on a grille…
Whenever roleplaying games, computer games or violent movies got blamed for violence, Dad’s response was “if that was the reason, my brothers and I would all have been serial murderers: Aunt Mathilda would put us to bed and then read from the Lives of Martyrs until we fell asleep.”
For further “information” check out the Late Ian Paisley’s European Institute for Protestant Studies.
Simon Schama’s BBC series on British art dealt with the serious lack of British Medieval religious art by letting Rev Paisley read the apropos passage from Scripture with lip-smacking relish. Smash those windows! Break those statues! Destroy those frescoes!
(I thought to add cites from The Works of Jack Chick. But his site appears to be down.)
This Catholic is very much lapsed. But I enjoy watching the Bible thumpers offended at gaudy art. (Time for another trip toSan Antonio.)
Thanks for the rest of the info. My smiley was meant as an implicit acknowledgement that what we’re really seeing is a glimpse into the history of human (in-)tolerance and cruelty as it was practiced 1000+ years ago. The Catholic church is one of the few extant organizations with semi-reliable records going back to that era. It wasn’t pretty.
As I commented in a post about Progressivism the other day, human nature may be immutable. But human society isn’t, and we owe our descendants a society at least a bit better than the one we inherited. Thanks be that most of the Earth doesn’t still live the Roman way.
Aaaaaa-men hallelujah, preach it brother! I mean, the roads and the language and all that sort of stuff are pretty nice, but yeah, their criminal system really needed an overhaul.
Maybe they are just really into math! 
We live in a neighborhood of reasonably modest 1960s split-levels, ranches and colonials. When folks don’t draw their curtains, it is almost hard to avoid seeing in the windows - especially at night. Down the block from us one house has a crucifix hanging on their living room wall that must be 6’ top to bottom. Talk about dominating the room! Now THAT would be a challenge to decorate around!
On further thought, I think the general practice is to eschew crosses in the original structure of a house, but to hang them to designate any addition.
When my husband and I were house-hunting about twenty years ago, one house we looked at had a few crucifixes on the walls, although not in every room. (Not the bathroom, for example.) Our real estate agent cringed at the sight of them and made a nasty remark about the sort of people who would have crucifixes up there.
I didn’t think that was a smart remark on her part. How did she know we weren’t Catholic? :dubious: And I’m related to people who are. This was one of a number of reasons I wanted to drop her, but the next house she showed us we wound up buying. We’re still on her mailing list, but when we finally sell this place, she’s not getting the listing.
When I read about “veneration” as allegedly contrasted with “worship” I figure someone has overdosed on Roget’s Thesaurus. It sounds like a snow job to me. Or, I could say, calling a cat’s tail a leg in a brazen effort to claim that a cat has five legs. I am not stupid enough to think that a religion that uses icons as much as the Catholic Church does would promulgate the Second Commandment without coming off as downright hypocritical.
Hey, Jack Chick’s site is up again! Order your tracts now for Halloween–offer the Trick Or Treaters Salvation instead of candy! I’m sure the children will find special ways to express their gratitude!
(His anti-Catholic screeds are also available. Keep clicking.)
Order your tracts for Halloween? Egad, I’m not that hungry. 
The children won’t express their gratitude–but there’s no question but that their parents will find a way! They’ll be sure to beat a path to your door.
Which is worse–Jack Chick’s anti-Catholic screeds or the Catholic Church’s time-worn–uh, time-honored screeds?
I may be confused about what you are asserting, so forgive me if I am not quite on point to your statement. But just to be clear, the Catholic Church most definitely includes the commandment against graven images. I know there is a long, long history of people pointing out that religious statues are graven images, and thus Catholics are doing it “wrong” or being hypocritical. But practicing Catholics do not see this as a “snow job.” WE GET IT. It’s that the Catholic interpretation of that commandment does not conflict with having a religious statue in the home (or anywhere else). I don’t want you to think that we’re unaware of all the various issues throughout history around this topic.
Would this be depictions of that weird-assed wax baby Jesus that they have in that one Prague cathedral that they dress up in all the various outfits? That’s probably the single most peculiar religious thing I’ve run across in my limited travels.
Who knew that people get copies and dress them up too?