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So, for instance, I can ask my departed mother's prayers now, even more confidently than I could when she lived here in my own home.

Seriously: do you have any objections to THIS?

Seriously. Yes, certainly. But you shouldn't care about my objections. It's God's word that admonishes those kinds of errors.

If Exodus 20 isn't enough, there's plenty more. Not once does God say to us in Scripture that we should pray to anyone other than to Him.

Protestants see a degradation of Christ in the Catholic practice of praying to anyone but the Triune God...

"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." -- Matthew 28:18

Read Colossians 1. "All things were created by Him and for Him." Christ is all you need and the ONLY hope of salvation.

"But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood.
Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." -- Hebrews 7:24-25

Christ, our ONLY intercessor, according to the will of God.

"What say I then? that the idol is any thing, or that which is offered in sacrifice to idols is any thing?
But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils." -- 1 Corinthians 10:19-20

There's a recurrent theme here which is that men fool themselves if they imagine they can get around the rules by fudging the names of the players. Your mom and my dad are happily glorifying God as we speak. That's what they're supposed to be doing right now.

And the same goes for us, which does not include taking our eyes off the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

"Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God." -- Leviticus 26:1

"Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men" -- Mark 7:7-8

No matter how pious a man is or was, no matter the good fruit of his life nor the extent of his saintliness, it is still a sin to pray to a human being because it is nothing less than worship of the creature and not the Creator.

"Vanity, definitely my favorite sin" -- Al Pacino as Satan in "The Devil's Advocate."