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I often have prayed at the request of others and they have when I ask.

So, I assume you're elevating yourself to the same status as Mary????

As far as "word warbling", there isn't much to warble about. There isn't a clear definition of what precisely "venerate" means within the Catholic Church. They just know-hey-it means something special (keep reading).

On one hand Catholics state they're to pray to Mary to intercede with Christ. According to the US Catholic organization, there are over 10,000 venerated saints. Why pick on Mary? She must be busy. What makes her so special?

On the other hand we have the above remark that veneration is no different than asking a neighbor to pray for them. That then again ask the question "Why Mary?"

From the Catholic dictionary:

"Idolatry etymologically denotes Divine worship given to an image, but its signification has been extended to all Divine worship given to anyone or anything but the true God . . . An essential difference exists between idolatry and the veneration of images practised [sic] in the Catholic Church, viz., that while the idolater credits the image he reverences with Divinity or Divine powers, the Catholic knows "that in images there is no divinity or virtue on account of which they are to be worshipped, that no petitions can be addressed to them, and that no trust is to be placed in them."
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

Wow...my bad. The Catholic knows there is "no petitions can be addressed to them" and yet they have statues of them in the church praying to ...something... At least the Catholic knows. (Sounds like shades of Gnosticism (knowing divine truth) at the very least.)

This has to be one of the most stupid (e.g. ludicrous) statement of belief on New Advent that I have read. I can't even begin to parse this dribble. The idolater credits the image he reverences???? Does anyone REALLY believe that people of old actually thought that a stone statue of Baal or Zeus was, in fact, Baal or Zeus? When people prayed to an idol they were putting their faith in what that idol represented. During Elijah's time they prayed for Baal to come down from heaven-not that the stone statue of him would pop to life. Much to the Baal priests (oops-interesting term) sadness, it didn't work. And this definition of idolatry doesn't fit with what the scriptures states what idolatry actually is-faith in something other than Christ.

Sadly, there isn't any difference between praying to Baal or praying to Mary. But then Elijah had a difficult time convincing his crowd-even when God threw down fire from heaven.