[Mrs. Don-o]

This is not Catholic doctrine, though --- it's the theological opinions and devotional thoughts of St. Louis Marie de Montfort. Nobody ever said it was de fide, and nobody every said saints are infallible.

Consider the style of this poetic genre. It is ardent and courtly -- effusive love, not a manual of doctrine --- and it follows the literary form comparable to 19th century romanticism, as in Elizabeth Barrett to Robert Browning:

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
....
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Devotion comprising all "depth and breadth and height" must refer to God the infinite, not man the finite; and "the ends of being and ideal grace" are terms divine, not human.

Yet I'm fairly confident that Miss Barrett did not think Mr. Browning was actually Almighty God. That's the way people wrote in letters to each other! Everyone, even casually, signed off as the other's "Obedient and humble servant" and pledged their "ne'er dying devotion!"

And not just 19th century Romantics. You even have the greatest of Calvinist Puritan poetesses, Anne Bradstreet, to her husband Simon who was far absent from her:

My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life, nay more,
My joy, my magazine of earthly store,
If two be one, as surely thou and I,
How stayest thou there, whilst I at Ipswich lie?
.....
My chilled limbs now numbed lie forlorn;
Return; return, sweet Sol, from Capricorn.

"My head, my heart, mine eyes, my life"?

She calls him a pagan sun god, "Sol"?

Doesn't she owe this to Jesus, not Simon Bradstreet?

But who would criticize her poem for that? I would imagine only people whose wimples were a little too starchy, and whose eyes were a little too close to their noses. None of the Puritans criticized her--- because even they, starchy as they were, had some grasp of the extravagances found in the genre of devotion.

And check out how this same Anne Bradstreet wrote of Queen Elizabeth I:

Here lies the pride of Queens, pattern of Kings:
So blaze it fame, here’s feathers for thy wings.
Here lies the envy’d, yet unparallel’d Prince,
Whose living virtues speak (though dead long since).
If many worlds, as that fantastic framed,
In every one, be her great glory famed.

Another on Queen Elizabeth I:

Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie,
Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky
Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime,
And so has vow’d, whilst there is world or time.
So great’s thy glory, and thine excellence,
The sound thereof raps every human sense
That men account it no impiety
To say thou wert a fleshly Deity.

Now. Do you honestly think this 17th century New England Puritan thought that Elizabeth I was the "pattern of Kings," and that if there were "many worlds" she would be famed in all of them?

Or that she, a daughter and matron of the radical Reformation, really thought it were "no impiety" to say Queen Elizabeth I was "a fleshly deity"?

So we're dealing with a fervent, florid devotional style that people offered to sovereigns and spouses. Similarly over-the-top--- to us --- are the extravagant hyperboles and obsequies found in Shakespeare and Michelangelo's sonnets. They strike the modern ear as embellishment in the Liberace range--- overheated flourish: but this was the devotional style of the courtly and the romantic age.

The Louis Marie de Montfort style of Marian prayer is never used liturgically (official public prayer); it is never a source of doctrine; and no, it is not part of my personal prayer life --- though I do love the Litany of Loreto.

However, keep in mind that pious Christian people were motivated to reach heights of devotional rhetoric which would exceed what people were shoveling on the jeweled head of Elizabeth I of England. They felt strongly that whatever was highest of the high in human honor should go, not to that "red-haired Welsh harridan," Queen Elizabeth presiding in Westminster, but to Christ's fair and humble mother, the maid of Nazareth.

Many today may not read this with sympathy or even comprehension. But so few in our age have any comprehension of the language love and devotion of ages past, no culture beyond the Kardashians.

Now, doctrine is a separate thing, and we will surely have plenty of straightforward disagreements there. That's OK by me. But I am simply advising you that an antique style seems excessive because, by our dim cultural lights, they are like a ton and a half of winky-twinklers on a 10-pound Christmas tree. But to the authors of Marian devotionals, it pertained to the honor of Christ that His sweet mother should be more greatly magnified than any proud Bess in London or any Empress of Byzantium.

[DungeonMaster]

"We believe all of this but it's not doctrine".

I've heard that argument before but I reject it.

DeMontfort is highly honored by the Catholic Church but...

But what?

Obama said the most beautiful sound in the world is the muslim call to prayer but he's not a muslim. He went to an America hating Black Liberation Theology church but he is a "Christian".

The Catholic church honors a man who continues with:

9. The whole world is filled with her glory, and this is especially true of Christian peoples, who have chosen her as guardian and protectress of kingdoms, provinces, dioceses, and towns. Many cathedrals are consecrated to God in her name. There is no church without an altar dedicated to her, no country or region without at least one of her miraculous images where all kinds of afflictions are cured and all sorts of benefits received. Many are the confraternities and associations honouring her as patron; many are the orders under her name and protection; many are the members of sodalities and religious of all congregations who voice her praises and make known her compassion. There is not a child who does not praise her by lisping a Hail Mary. There is scarcely a sinner, however hardened, who does not possess some spark of confidence in her. The very devils in hell, while fearing her, show her respect.

[boatbums]

This is not Catholic doctrine, though --- it's the theological opinions and devotional thoughts of St. Louis Marie de Montfort. Nobody ever said it was de fide, and nobody every said saints are infallible.

The Louis Marie de Montfort style of Marian prayer is never used liturgically (official public prayer); it is never a source of doctrine; and no, it is not part of my personal prayer life --- though I do love the Litany of Loreto.

If it is "never a source of doctrine", then explain why it was given and still retains the official "Imprimatur" and "nihil obstat" of the Roman Catholic church? These terms imply:

In the Catholic Church an imprimatur is an official declaration by a Church authority that a book or other printed work may be published;[1][2] it is usually only applied for and granted to books on religious topics from a Catholic perspective.

The grant of imprimatur is normally preceded by a favourable declaration (known as a nihil obstat)[3] by a person who has the knowledge, orthodoxy and prudence necessary for passing a judgement about the absence from the publication of anything that would "harm correct faith or good morals"[4] In canon law such a person is known as a censor[4] or sometimes as a censor librorum (Latin for "censor of books"). In this context, the word "censor" does not have the negative sense of prohibiting, but instead refers to the person's function of evaluating—whether positively or negatively—the doctrinal content of the publication.[5] The episcopal conference may draw up a list of persons who can suitably act as censors or can set up a commission that can be consulted, but each ordinary may make his own choice of person to act as censor.[4]

An imprimatur is not an endorsement by the bishop of the contents of a book, not even of the religious opinions expressed in it, being merely a declaration about what is not in the book.[6] In the published work, the imprimatur is sometimes accompanied by a declaration of the following tenor:

The nihil obstat and imprimatur are declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat or imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed.[7] The person empowered to issue the imprimatur is the local ordinary of the author or of the place of publication.[8] If he refuses to grant an imprimatur for a work that has received a favourable nihil obstat from the censor, he must inform the author of his reasons for doing so.[2] This enables the author, if he wishes, to make changes so as to overcome the ordinary's difficulty in granting approval.[9]

If further examination shows that a work is not free of doctrinal or moral error, the imprimatur granted for its publication can be withdrawn. This happened three times in the 1980s, when the Holy See judged that complaints made to it about religion textbooks for schools were well founded and ordered the bishop to revoke his approval. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprimatur)