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Dear Nina Estrella Yap,

Sorry for our delayed reply to your query on what your friend should do with the pastor instructing their members to burn sacred images.

Let us recall our catechism: “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 that whose image is it” (CCC 2132).

As a devout Catholic, let your friend live out her loyalty to the faith by protecting and giving due respect to these images. If her mom has discerned well already that she can become closer to God and become holier with the guidance of the pastor, then let God’s grace work in her. It would be better for your friend to pray for her and respect her decision as she also wishes to be respected by not destroying the sacred images for her to exercise her spiritual life. Your friend must be cautious as snake and gentle as dove in her stand for the faith.

Thank you and we pray for you.

DCHerald