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"Both are available to intercede for us with Christ."

Obviously we are never going to agree. In this instance I can't help but think to myself, "why aren't you going straight to our Saviour, Jesus Christ?". He's never too busy for us and nothing is to small.
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"Of course, we absolutely would exclude anyone who taught that Mary or any of the Saints was greater than or equal to the Holy Trinity."

Don't you teach/believe that prayers to Mary are given special consideration? Don't you teach/believe Mary was born without sin and never died but was assumed into heaven? Don't you teach/believe that Mary is the "Queen of Heaven"? Looking from the outside in I see these things and can't help but think you are elevating Mary to a status she does not deserve.

I don't see anything wrong with having the most profound respect for Mary, but I don't agree with all these other characteristics that are attributed to her.

Obviously we are never going to agree. In this instance I can't help but think to myself, "why aren't you going straight to our Saviour, Jesus Christ?". He's never too busy for us and nothing is to small.

Perhaps you Protestants don't pray as much as we Catholics do. We pray to Jesus constantly. And indeed, every prayer--even the intercessory ones through the Saints--are to Jesus. That we also ask the Saints to pray on our behalf is absolutely no different from asking your mother, father, sister, brother, best friend to pray for you. The Saints are alive in Heaven--why wouldn't they be available to us as they stand in the presence of Almighty God?

Don't you teach/believe that prayers to Mary are given special consideration? Don't you teach/believe Mary was born without sin and never died but was assumed into heaven? Don't you teach/believe that Mary is the "Queen of Heaven"? Looking from the outside in I see these things and can't help but think you are elevating Mary to a status she does not deserve.

But notice what I said: None of these things say that Mary is greater than or equal to the Holy Trinity. None. As for Mary being Queen of Heaven, you do agree that she was the Mother of God, right, that title being defined canonically at the Council of Ephesus in AD 431? And as Jesus is truly our King, is it not common practice to recognize the Mother of the King as a Queen?

I don't see anything wrong with having the most profound respect for Mary, but I don't agree with all these other characteristics that are attributed to her.

Well, I personally have no problem with them. They have been lauded and believed by Saints and theologians down through the ages and I have no reason at all to think that we do evil by asking the Blessed Mother of God to pray for us.

[WM to Antoninus:] In this instance I can't help but think to myself, "why aren't you going straight to our Saviour, Jesus Christ?". He's never too busy for us and nothing is to small.

I have been thinking that for the longest time. Every minute spent in prayer to a saint is a minute lost with the Lord. Many times I have heard the standard line that it is the same as asking a friend for prayer. I don't buy it. When I ask my friend for prayer, my head isn't bowed and my mind is not cleared and focused only on God. At that moment I am having a conversation with my human friend. That is completely different. If I decided to spend the next 5 minutes in prayer, I would spend all of it with my Master only, I would NOT spend the whole time talking to some dead guy I've never met, asking him to put in a good word for me with God. There is no substitute for praying directly to our Lord, and no purpose for doing otherwise.