people are taking a character who was made to help guide people to God and have foisted a lot of their own earthly hang ups

However, how else can one start to build a path to your God for the mortals of the earth but with the familiar earthly materials? All rivers must flow to the sea no matter how many twists and turns they take.

but I don’t know if you can build that kind of relationship by taking a “Catholic symbol” removing everything holy about it and replacing it with communism

Communism is also holy since its teleology is born out of the abrahamic dream of creating paradise on earth where one loves thy neighbor, as stated by his holiness st. bhagavan shree matt christman (PBUH).