Glad you note that. If proves Mary was a sinner in need of salvation just like the rest of us. That takes away the Immaculate Conception.
However, the apparitions claiming to be Mary still are acknowledged by catholicism. These apparitions claim if you wear a piece of clothing you will not see Hell.
The apparitions claiming to be Mary have told people to build shrines in honor of it.
Catholicism has yet to address these false teachings.
As for "praying" only to God, once again that demands some refinement of what you mean by "praying."
You keep playing these word games in an effort to deflect the fact catholics pray to Mary when there is no Biblical support for this. We are to pray to God only.
There is no room for veneration/adoration of Mary, the saints, etc in the Word.
All of our focus should be on Him and Him alone.
Your comment: “There is no room for veneration/adoration of Mary, the saints, etc in the Word.”
Praying for each other is simply part of what Christians do. As we saw, in 1 Timothy 2:1–4, Paul strongly encouraged Christians to intercede for many different things, and that passage is by no means unique in his writings. Elsewhere Paul directly asks others to pray for him (Rom. 15:30–32, Eph. 6:18–20, Col. 4:3, 1 Thess. 5:25, 2 Thess. 3:1), and he assured them that he was praying for them as well (2 Thess. 1:11). Most fundamentally, Jesus himself required us to pray for others, and not only for those who asked us to do so (Matt. 5:44).
Since the practice of asking others to pray for us is so highly recommended in Scripture, it cannot be regarded as superfluous on the grounds that one can go directly to Jesus. The New Testament would not recommend it if there were not benefits coming from it. One such benefit is that the faith and devotion of the saints can support our own weaknesses and supply what is lacking in our own faith and devotion. Jesus regularly supplied for one person based on another person’s faith (e.g., Matt. 8:13, 15:28, 17:15–18, Mark 9:17–29, Luke 8:49–55). And it goes without saying that those in heaven, being free of the body and the distractions of this life, have even greater confidence and devotion to God than anyone on earth.
Also, God answers in particular the prayers of the righteous. James declares: “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit” (Jas. 5:16–18). Yet those Christians in heaven are more righteous, since they have been made perfect to stand in God’s presence (Heb. 12:22-23), than anyone on earth, meaning their prayers would be even more efficacious.
The Bible directs us to invoke those in heaven and ask them to pray with us. Thus in Psalms 103, we pray, “Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will!” (Ps. 103:20-21). And in Psalms 148 we pray, “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights! Praise him, all his angels, praise him, all his host!” (Ps. 148:1-2).
Not only do those in heaven pray with us, they also pray for us. In the book of Revelation, we read: “[An] angel came and stood at the altar [in heaven] with a golden censer; and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar before the throne; and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God” (Rev. 8:3-4).
http://www.catholic.com/tracts/praying-to-the-saints
"It proves Mary was a sinner in need of salvation just like the rest of us. That takes away the Immaculate Conception."
It proves no such thing. It proves she needed a Savior because otherwise she would have inherited a marred and defective human nature. You can save a person preemptively or remedially. Christ graciously saved her preemptively. It's part of her predestination to be His mother, the natural source of His human nature.
"However, the apparitions claiming to be Mary still are acknowledged by catholicism. These apparitions claim if you wear a piece of clothing you will not see Hell."
I do not believe that. It is not part of the doctrine of the Catholic Church. Nor, I think, was it meant to be. It's a kind of popular-piety like saying, "You want to divorce-proof your marriage? Kiss your wife every night, and never go to be angry." It's good advice, very good advice, but it's not doctrine.
"The apparitions claiming to be Mary have told people to build shrines in honor of it."
There's a dozen Protestnt churches within a 5 mile radius of my house, with names like "Munsey Memorial Methodist Church," "Burbank Freewill Baptist," "Asbury Evangelistic Associates," "Nelson Chapel," "Magill Memorial Presbyterian Church," etc. They can be compared to shrines established in honor of the Virgin Mother Mary. They were not built to worship Munsey, Burbank, Asbury, Nelson, and Magill. They were built at their behest and named in their honor, to worship God and for the glory of God.
You do understand that, don't you? If not, I wouldn't know where to begin.
The doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ absolutely states that we need each other. Noplace in the Bible does it say "We are to pray to God only" --- if you mean pray in the sense relevant here, the sense of communicating and sharing with one another as living members of the living Christ.
You find that, and we'll talk.
Tagline.