The Immaculate Conception Catholic Church of Lakeland, Louisiana, shared a note from the pastor in their Aug. 9 bulletin.

The phenomenon of iconoclasm — the use of statues and images in religious ceremonies — which was alive an well in the Middle Ages, though decried as a heresy in extreme cases, is now experiencing a resurgence in the “cancel culture” in which we live, the Rev. Todd Lloyd said in his note.

“There are two essential claims that influence the call for renaming places or destroying images and statues today,” Lloyd continued. “Either they represent people who (supposedly) should not be memorized; or they are represented wrongly by the pigment of their skin and features.”

As Catholics, we do value religious art and this is aided by the fact that God gave us a physical Lord, Jesus Christ, to worship, Lloyd said. While we must not worship graven images, of course, we should also respect what art can teach us about God and how it can bring us closer to the truth of who Christ is.

“It is generally believed that [Jesus] likely has olive toned skin. Anyone whose faith requires Jesus be a certain race are ignorant and arguing with them may be an exercise in futility,” Lloyd said.

Jesus is the Lord of all people, white, black, creole, etc.

“He is not constrained by our ideas of race or culture or time or space,” Lloyd concluded.