I remember sitting in church with my grandmother as a kid. She'd close her eyes and whisper prayers, and I always got the sense she wasn't talking to me, but she wasn't just talking into the air either. She was asking someone to pray with her, alongside her. That memory shapes how I see this whole debate. Look, when you pray to Mary, you're not worshipping her. You're asking a fellow believer for intercession. We ask friends to pray for us all the time. We send prayer requests to our church communities. Mary is just the ultimate prayer partner. Honoring her is not the same as adoring her. There's a clear distinction in Catholic theology between veneration and worship, and it's not just a loophole. It's actually biblical. James calls prayer powerful when it's from the righteous. Who's more righteous than the mother of Jesus? The early church did this too, historically. The catacombs show prayers to Mary. This isn't a later invention. It's a practice rooted in the earliest Christian community.

You keep saying Jesus is the sole mediator, but that doesn't mean we can't ask other people to pray for us. If a friend asks me to pray for them, they're not replacing Jesus as mediator—they're using the access Jesus gave us. The same logic applies to Mary. She's not mediating salvation; she's joining her prayers with ours. Scripture even shows believers asking each other for prayer constantly. On idolatry, I get the concern, but it assumes intent. The Catholic distinction between veneration and worship isn't a loophole—it's a real, historical understanding. We honor Mary, we don't adore her. That's not idolatry any more than honoring a parent or a pastor is. And you didn't address the early church evidence. The catacombs show Christians praying for Mary's intercession. That's not a later invention. If the earliest believers saw this as acceptable, the burden of proof is on you to show it's forbidden.

[No submission - Time expired]