Henry VIII’s secret hatred for the Blessed Virgin Mary

It’s not a widely known fact that Henry VIII had a deep hatred for the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

After becoming a heretic, and proclaimed himself Head of the Church of England, to obtain his lustful desires, he went on a rampage, destroying and burning the Marian shrines of England.

He even had the miraculous statue of Our Lady of Walsingham burned in the streets of London with great fanfare in 1538.

The apostate bishop Latimer wrote of the image of Our Lady:

“She hath been the Devil's instrument, I fear, to bring many to eternal fire; now she herself with her older sister of Walsingham, her younger sister of Ipswich, and their two sisters of Doncaster and Penrhys will make a jolly muster in Smithfield. They would not be all day in burning".

It’s is fitting that one who rejects the virtues of purity and obedience will then end up by hating Our Lady, who practiced these virtues to the most elevated degree.

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Saint Louis de Montfort writes:

The pious and learned Jesuit, Suarez, Justus Lipsius, a devout and erudite theologian of Louvain, and many others have proved incontestably that devotion to our Blessed Lady is necessary to attain salvation.

This they show from the teaching of the Fathers, notably St. Augustine, St. Ephrem, deacon of Edessa, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Germanus of Constantinople, St. John Demascene, St. Anselm, St. Bernard, St. Bernardine, St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure.

Even according to Oecolampadius and other heretics, lack of esteem and love for the Virgin Mary is an infallible sign of God's disapproval. On the other hand, to be entirely and genuinely devoted to her is a sure sign of God's approval.