Good point. (This has befuddled many an Inman as well!)
For instance, if someone asks me if I pray to Mary I'll answer "absolutely" and not bother with distinctions some Catholics make about praying "through" her or what have you. I'm not here to make my beliefs more palatable to non-Catholics. I tell her I think she's wonderful and I ask her for help, just like I do with my own mother... and my wife for that matter (good grief that was almost suicide).
BTW...I don't want to go off on any significant tangent, but I got to thinking about this the next day after you posted it. I appreciate your forthrightness here, so I thought I'd be forthright as well & just ask: In light of what you said, what do you do with passages from the apostle Paul like: 5For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus... (1 Tim. 2:5)
(I mean do you just put an asterisk by that verse & say, "Well, I actually have two official mediators as go-between liaisons between God & me?" Or does Mary replace Jesus as that mediator?)
How does that work in practice to be re-writing Scripture?
And do you go directly to Jesus, and if not, why not?
And if you go to both, why not just go direct to the god-man, the Prescribed Mediator for us?
That being said, and the analogy being clunky, I'm not a huge Marian guy. In the order of "Women who are wonderful" it's Mary, my wife, my mom (sorry mom, but them's the breaks). I have asked all of them for help, I have asked all of them to pray for me and I have asked all of them to pray with me. None of them can save me from my sins. All of them pray better than I do, all of them are closer to God than I am. That's not false humility either, it is simple reality.
I became Catholic before my wife and I started having children and it's the children who have helped to develop my understanding of "intercession". Many's the time when this particular unjust judge has bowed to the united pressure of five children and their mother (when the grandparents get involved we usually end up at the beach for a week). It's also true there are many occasions when it's "don't look at mommy, mommy can't save you now".
I don't feel diminished by my wife or my mother, my kids know who I am. They're social creatures, they have friends, they have special relationships within the family. If I were to ask "who do you love more, mommy or me?" they would think I had lost my mind... and they'd probably be right. Of course I am not God, and God alone is worthy of all our love because God alone is all good and any goodness in His creatures comes from Him. That is true for Mary as much as it is true for you and me but here I am typing at you. I don't think God is displeased that my attention is directed toward this discussion and the people involved in it. I love my wife, my kids, my parents, my in-laws, my friends as long as that love is properly ordered it can't take away anything that belongs to God. In fact to say to my wife or children "You're not worthy of my love because you're not God" is to diminish what God has given them and what God has given me through them.
But on top of all that, if there's anyone running around saying he prays to Mary or the saints in Heaven because he feels closer to them than to God or that he's somehow more comfortable that way... THAT person has lost his God given mind.
So yeah... how 'bout them Mormons?