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"My side" is all over asking for prayers. But when we advocate asking for the prayers of those who, we think, behold God's face, then an argument is offered which SEEMS to say we should only pray directly to Jesus. That seems inconsistent. Therefore we raise the issue.

Sorry for the tardy reply. Here's the diff - we are constantly reminded to pray for others, ourselves, the lost, our leaders and the world in Scripture but there isn't anything in the Bible that says we should pray to or for those saints that have died. Since this praying for the above is the inspired word of God and nothing is there about the to/for dead people, then that is what I go by. When you insist having others pray for us and we for others is a denial of the mediator role of Jesus for us, it is canceled by the Scriptures that tell us we can and should do so. We are praying to Jesus for something and he is our mediator to the Father. When prayers are offered to the dead saints, THEY are the mediators to the Father, right? If not, then do they go to Jesus and he goes to the Father? Yet Scripture is plain that it is Jesus who is our mediator. So we are left with trying to understand the purpose of this kind of intercessory prayer.

Of course, there are many purposes that I can think of such as participating in the plan of God working in those we are asked to pray for. It "connects" us to the work of God and causes empathy, sympathy, rejoicing - when the result is as was prayed and accepting the will of God when it doesn't work as we asked.

I can attest to many, many times when I prayed - asking in faith - for God's will about certain things and being comforted in knowing that how it turned out was his will. I have prayed for a certain job, for example, and either I got it and it worked out great or when I didn't get it and even in my disappointment, I learned to trust when I left it in his hands - more than a few times that job I thought I wanted so bad and didn't get turned out for good as I saw the department, where I would have been working, discontinued and the employees laid off. I also believe it is God's way of keeping us dependent on him strengthening and growing our faith. Those "saints" that are still alive here with us are joined in our walk and we with theirs and God works all things to his glory. So, no, I do not agree there is a contradiction.

Okay. You are saying that since God (through Paul, and elsewhere) told us who have not yet died to pray for others, that does not contradict the line in I Tim 2:5.

I understand that there is no explicit command to pray to the saints who have died. As far as I can see the status with regard to death is irrelevant.
(I'm not trying to be contentious.I'm trying to lay out my side.)
That is, WHOEVER, who is NOT IHS and whom I ask to pray for me is nevertheless, I think, being asked to perform a intermediary function, whether you want to say "advocacy" or want to call it some other thing.

Whether they've died or not, If I say, "Hey, you go talk to so and so on my behalf and ask him for such-and-such," I think I'm asking someone to mediate, to be between me and the person from whom I want something.

And I think that when you read from I Tim 2:1 to 2:6, at least a POSSIBLE interpretation is that we are to perform this intermediary function BECAUSE (rather than in spite of) there is One Mediator (into whom we have been grafted.)

That is, the issue of having died or not does not alter the esse of the action Paul tells Timothy he wants everyone in the churches to do. Whatever it's CALLED, what it IS is a kind of mediatory activity, however derivative.

Now it SEEMS that your contention is:
EITHER
(1)We (the not having died) are asked to pray for others, but
(2) IHS XP is the ONE mediator, THEREFORE
(3) The praying for others we are asked to do is not mediation;
OR
What ever it is or isn't, the so-called "intercession of the saints" is wrong ONLY because of the "dead people" aspect of it.

Is one of those what you are saying?

The lesser issues:

-- Okay, I do not KNOW for sure, but my GUESS is that the (having died) saints intercede for us, JUST AS the not having died saints do. They lay their petitions, so to speak, before IHS's feet, and HE takes them to the Father. It does not compute in any way for me that their intercession would not be "in and through" IHS. There's no way around the Second Person of the Trinity. There's only through.

-- A lot of people say I'm not a representative Catholic. I don't know. But I do know that when my daughter was, we were told, dying, I asked anybody who would hold still to pray, whether they'd died or not!

So for me, to say that our asking the having died saints to pray for us interferes with our asking the not having died saints to pray for us just isn't true.

And the Catholics -- at least the ones in the so-called "Latin Rite" -- have this charming custom. During the "free" part of our intercessory prayers at Mass, someone will often say, "For a special 'intention'" ['intention' is Catholic-speak for 'thing I'm praying for']." In other words, "I would like the prayers of everyone here, but it's private."

I think that's kind of cute.

I hope this moved the ball in a helpful way.