I’m not very religious, but whenever I travel to European countries there’s always a local “Patron Saint” that the locals admonish or pray to (like Saint Sebastien – Patron Saint of Mallorca, or Saint Lucy in Venice being the Patron Saint of the blind). My question is, how is this not technically polytheistic? I thought you were only supposed to pray to God? Thanks!
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Your question is one that has been asked by lots of people over the years. For example, some African religions have a similar concept of intercession between lesser gods and greater gods in their pantheons, so when Catholic missionaries were trying to convert them the locals would ask why the priests were saying the saints are somehow different than the lesser gods. There’s a theological justification for why it’s different, but really it comes down to, “Catholicism is defined by Catholics, and we say so.” There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s how all religions work, but there’s not really an ELI5 that gives any answer that can be justified outside Catholicism.
From another angle, the concept of sanctity/sainthood predates Christianity by a long time – there are references to Holy people in the Hebrew Bible and in the scriptures of many other ancient religions. So it’s really not a unique concept, but Catholicism has their own “rules” for how sainthood works.
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