moving to a different post from this one so we don’t clog the notes (tagging as scrying post if anyone wants to blacklist)
afaik the tarot thing is supposed to be a gift from someone you love because their love for you will make the deck “better” (like a cast iron pan being seasoned by use) rather than having to do w the actual functionality of the deck (as such, it only applies to your First Deck because that’s the one you cut your teeth on)
and yes lol the church has a lot of rules (full disclosure; i was raised catholic) but what they consider Sacred Art is pretty narrow and usually commissioned directly by a member of the church so it follows all the rules it needs to (source)
so 1) a random copy of an image of the madonna, or even an original painting of her is not automatically Sacred Art ESPECIALLY since they have no idea how it was made
2) a random priest of a random church is very unlikely to take the time to appraise the legitimacy of a random anonymous picture slid under the door, or even consider it worth noting (official donations of Sacred Art require the person donating them to actually go through a transfer process and thats IF the church decides it’s worth taking)
so yeah it’s less “the priests will handle your holy image properly” and more “if you slide the christian equivalent of a homemade notebook cover under a church door, whoever is inside will throw it away for you in exactly the same manner as you would throw it away at home, except the trash bin will be located on church grounds”
laughing at people stealing holy water though, i know SO MANY CATHOLICS WHO DO THAT. i’m legit taking a course about how magic fits in with christianity (and how it doesn’t) and at the end of the day the line really is “do the men running the church consider it bad? then it’s witchcraft. otherwise it’s a holy miracle from god and is fine.”
edit: forgot to tag @gattmammon