The “we’re just asking the departed to pray for us” usually gets trotted out in defense of what is unmistakably asking the dead to DO (”save us”, “protect us”, “grant us”, “give us”, etc.) things, along with words of praise and adoration - indistinguishable from outright worship violating the 1st Commandment.
You wrote:
“The were just asking the departed to pray for us usually gets trotted out in defense of what is unmistakably asking the dead to DO (save us, protect us, grant us, give us, etc.) things, along with words of praise and adoration - indistinguishable from outright worship violating the 1st Commandment.”
No.
1) There’s no adoration.
2) We praise saints only in their relationship to the God Who made them saints.
3) No saint has any power other than that given him by God.
4) Saints aren’t dead.
Matthew 22:29... Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. 31But about the resurrection of the deadhave you not read what God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”
God is the God of the living. The saints are alive in God.
Jesus HIMSELF spoke with "the dead":
Matt. 17:3; Mark 9:3-4; Luke 9:30-31
No one would call Jesus and idol worshiper.