If you were steeped in the catechism you should know that there are veru different sorts of worship. In England, they speak of some officials as “your worship” —which is short for “worthy of respect.” Not all worship is idolatry. Not all reverence even for icons is idolatry. The cult of Mary can go to extremes but so can the iconoclasm of the puritans and other radicals of the Reformation, who not only smashed beautiful statutes but white-washed murals so as not to distract from the worship of the words coming from the mouths of the preachers, which were supposed to be the true Gospel. It was not unlike the approach of the desert Muslims, except that they—unlike the Puritains—love poetry.
Perhaps one could say that I was brought up in such a "extreme" culture. The cult of Mary was ingrained at school since kindergarten: daily Rosary (more than once, if you misbehaved), novenas, daily prayer to her... And it wasn't only the school. Life in Spain would come to a stand still every day at noon, the church bells would ring and all radio stations broadcasted the angelus! And the relics!! Many years later, when I was getting ready to defend my PhD dissertation, my mom mailed me a ribbon that had touched a rock that tradition said Mary had stood upon! She wanted me to carry the ribbon with me to ensure that I would do good in my presentation! I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I don't have anything against Mary, I respect her and certainly I don't fear her. When people ask me if I believe she's the mother of God, I always answer that she is the mother of the human side of Jesus. But when I pray, I follow Paul's advice and approach boldly the Throne of Grace (Heb. 4:16) and my only mediator is Jesus (1 Tim 2:5).