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So why do Catholics pray to Mary? She cannot answer prayer.

As a back-ground note: the word "pray" can cause some confusion in modern times, especially for Americans (and especially American Protestants), since they use the word exclusively in reference to "adoration of, or petitioning, God alone"... but that is not the original meaning of the word. "Pray", in its original sense, means "to ask"... and you might recognise instances of this, even today:

"What, pray tell, do you mean?" (Translated: "What, I ask you to tell, do you mean?")

It is not at all wrong or heretical to "pray to" (i.e. to direct a request to) any of the Saints in Heaven, or to you, or to anyone else; a request is a request, and it does not at all imply "adoration owed to God alone".

Ironically enough, modern English (especially in the USA) has "morphed" to the point where several terms used in religion have gotten rather badly muddled. For instance: the word "adorable" has come to mean "that which is cute, darling, intensely pleasing"; but its original meaning was "that which is worthy of adoration--i.e. that which is due to God alone"... or, to put it bluntly: the only "adorable" thing is God! Ironically, another word is now confused with it: the word "worship" is currently taken to mean "giving that which is due to God alone", but that is not its original meaning; it used to refer to "the state of being worthy" (e.g. "authorship" = "condition of being the author of something", "hardship" = "condition of being/suffering that which is hard", and "worship" is a contraction of "worth-ship", or "the condition of being worthy"). Even in High Church Anglicanism, one may still hear the phrase at weddings, where the bride and groom say TO EACH OTHER [and not to God]: "with my body, I thee WORSHIP"! And yet, this hardly means that the couple is guilty of mutual idolatry!

In answer to your question: the Blessed Virgin can most certainly answer prayer, just as I can, and just as you can... but only in and through the grace of God (i.e. He empowers us to answer pleas to us, in our respective capacities). In fact, the Blessed Virgin is in a far better position to do so, since she is no longer encumbered with the limitations and burdens of this vale of tears, within time. She is also immeasurably closer to God than are we, and she still intercedes for us in the same way that she interceded for the couple at Cana.