Is it wrong to pray to statues of Jesus and Mary?

[Mattestrad]

Hello and thank to whoever is reading this for answering. Okay so in the past I love seeing statues of Jesus and Mary and thought they were so beautiful and made prayer even more extra special when praying to the statues of them because it made me feel like they were actually there. Then a while ago I really wanted to buy some for my house and I started doing research on where I can buy some. Then a thought popped into my head that I should try to make one and then get it blessed by a priest. So I went onto YouTube to see if they maybe had a tutorial of some sort and I unfortunately stumbled upon a video of a Protestant saying that it is wrong that Catholics have statues or in his case he called it idol and that it said in the bible not to do that and all this other stuff. Then that kind of shook me a little but then I remembered that in the Ten Commandments God said thou shall honor no false idol and a statue of Jesus and Mary are not false idols so it’s okay but now I think I just need reassurance that it’s fine because I really love the artwork of scared statues.

 

[Fr.Charles_Grondin]

We do not pray *to *statues, we pray to the person that the statue represents. When we pray to a saint, we are imploring them to pray on our behalf similar to when we ask our neighbor to pray for us.
Statues are important because they are powerful reminders of the saint(s) and the power of faith and prayer. As Catholics our faith appeals to all the senses and statues evoke our visual senses and our natural response to beauty.

For further reading;
Do Catholics Worship Statues?
How can the Church allow statues when Exodus 20 forbids it?
So Catholics Worship Statues?