pardon me but your kumquat is in my eschatological discourse

Debating with a woman I've met in Lidl supermarket.
She's greeted me.
She recognises me because she once worked for my uncle.
She has the notion that I am some sort of religious maniac.
She tells me she is now worshipping with a group of non Catholics.
She's mentioned the claimed apparitions at Medjugorje which she has visited and is sceptical of, and which I am careful about, but still interested in.
Ooopsies, she's taken a side swipe at the Catholic Church.
And away we go.
I'm rather enjoying her challenges.
"You Catholics let the priests come between you and God," quoth she. "There's no need for any priests. Go directly to God."
"I agree with you that people can and should go directly to God," sez me. "He's there for us. I'm with you a hundred percent on that. But I'm saying to you that the priests are a glory of the human race given by God. As is the mass. As is the celebration of communion. Why would we throw his gifts back in his face?"
"How can you say that after what they've done?"
"I stand with them. If they'll have me. I stand with them. Proudly."
"Oh James. After all their crimes."
"You're judging everyone by the slanders you've heard on RTE and in a few bankrupt Bolshevick freemasonic newspapers. In every generation the forces of hell try to murder the Catholic Church from human history. In 400 AD it was the Vandal invasions. From 700 to now, it's been Islamism. For the last 150 years the Communists have given it a whirl and they've outkilled even the Islamists. For a few decades in the 1930s and 1940s the Nazis had a go. Why would you be surprised that in our generation when two millennia of murdering priests has failed, evil would now try slander in its attempt to erase the church from human experience?"
"But you Catholics allow priests and saints and symbols and rituals to come between yourselves and God. It's not just priests. You have all this nonsense about the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints praying for you in heaven. There's no need for any of that. Go directly to God. Why would you need anyone or anything else?"
"Because has loaded reality with riches intended for us. I still agree with you that we can and should go directly to God. But the Blessed Mother and the saints are real. Like the priests and the nuns they are a glorious part of reality. Why cut ourselves off from something so beautiful?"
"If you really believe in God there is no need for saints and blessed virgins."
"Well, you say you believe in the authority of the Bible. Okay. The Bible records Peter and Paul healing people on earth as well as the Lord saying: If you believe in me you will do greater miracles than I have done. There is ample testimony from experience and from tradition that people on earth can and should pray for each other. That it works through God's power never through our own power. So why not people in heaven? I'm suggesting that somehow we become who God wants us to be when we care enough about each other to pray to God for each other. We know that here on earth sometimes God will heal a person when another person prays for him or lays hands on him. It is indeed as some Protestant believers say: God honours prayers. We also see that some people who live among us are a bit like Saint Peter and Saint Paul, ie they get quite good results from prayer, who knows why, maybe they're somehow closer to the Lord than we are. Okay then. If God has told us to pray for each other on earth as most believing Protestants and Catholics profess, and if God has made us immortal souls, why would we doubt the reality that holy people after death who go to God can still pray for us in heaven? That's the Catholic understanding anyway. My testimony to you is that it is true."