Maria Valtorta
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Maria Valtorta (14 March 1897 (Caserta, Italy) – 12 October 1961 (Viareggio, Italy)) was an Italian writer and poet, considered by many to be a mystic. Her work centers on Catholic Christian themes. Her followers believe that she had personally conversed with Jesus Christ in her visions.
Maria was an only child; her parents were from the Lombardy region of Italy. Her father was in the Italian cavalry and eventually settled in Viareggio, on the coast of the Mediterranean in Tuscany in 1924. She received a classic education in various parts of Italy, and focused on Italian literature. However, after settling in Viareggio, she hardly ever left that town. In 1920, at the age of 23, her life took an unexpected turn. While she was walking on a street with her mother, a delinquent youth struck her in the back with an iron bar for no apparent reason. Although she seemed to have recovered after 3 months, and was able to move around for over a decade thereafter, the complications from that injury eventually confined her to bed for 28 years, from 1934 onwards.
In 1925 she was deeply moved by reading the autobiography of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus and in 1930 took private vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. In 1935, a year after she was bed-ridden, Martha Diciotti began to care for her as a constant companion and listener until her death. Maria’s religious adviser was Father Romuald Migliorini, O.S.M. who asked her to write about her visions and her autobiography.
On the morning of Good Friday 1943, Maria had the first vision of Jesus speaking to her. These visions and conversations grew more frequent over time and continued until 1953. From 1944 to 1947 she recorded these vision and conversations in 15,000 handwritten pages. These pages became the basis of her major work The Poem of the Man God and constitute about two thirds of her literary work. The visions give a detailed account of the life of Jesus from his birth to the Passion and read like an elaboration of the Gospel. For instance, while the Gospel includes a few sentences about the wedding at Cana, the text includes a few pages and narrates the words spoken among the people present. The visions also describe the many journeys of Jesus throughout the Holy Land, and his conversations with people such as the apostles.
The handwritten pages were characterized by the fact that they included no overwrites, corrections or revisions and seemed somewhat like dictations. The fact that she often suffered from heart and lung ailments during the period of the visions made the natural flow of the text even more unusual. Readers are often struck by the fact that the sentences attributed to Jesus in the visions have a distinct and recognizable tone and style that is distinct from the rest of the text. Given that she never left Italy and was bed-ridden much of her life, Maria’s writings reflect a surprising, almost eyewitness-like, knowledge of the Holy Land. A geologist, Dr. Vittorio Tredici, stated that her detailed knowledge of the topographic, geological and mineralogical aspects of Palestine seems unexplainable. And a biblical archeologist, Father Dreyfus, noted that her work includes the names of several small towns which are absent from the Old and New Testaments and are only known to a few experts.
The Poem of the Man God was initially offered to the Vatican Printing Office for publication in 1948 because Pope Pius XII had agreed with its publication. But Pope Pius XII died in 1958 and the next Pope, John XXIII disagreed with that decision and placed the book on the Index of Forbidden Books in 1959. However, in 1963 Pope Paul VI succeeded John XXIII and abolished the Index altogether in 1965. Valtorta followers argue that this in effect nullified the suppression of 1959 since the Index no longer existed after 1965. Others view the abolition of the Index as not reversing the church's opinion of the work.
At the moment the official position of the Catholic Church with respect to the book is less than clear. The church does not endorse the book, yet does not ban it either, although church officials (including Cardinal Ratzinger in 1985) have made occasional comments about it. The last formal action taken by the Vatican with respect to the book was in 1992, when Dionigi Cardinal Tettamanzi, the Secretary General of the Italian Bishops' Conference, wrote to the publisher Emilio Pisani. In his letter, Cardinal Tettamanzi requested that a paragraph be added to the first few pages of the book disclaiming any supernatural origin for the work. The publisher assumes that the letter indicates that the Italian Bishops' Conference sees nothing in the work that contradicts the doctrines of the Church, yet some detractors claim that the letter intended to classify the work as fiction. Since 1992 the Catholic Church has chosen to remain silent on its position with respect to the work.
The Poem of the Man God was eventually published as a 4,000 page multi-volume book and has since been translated into 10 languages. Valtorta's other literary works include historical notes on the early Christian church and martyrs and comments on biblical texts, as well as some religious poems and compositions. In the 1980s, she was mentioned in the visions of two of the visionaries in Medjugorje. The Medjugorje visions by Marija Pavlovic and Vicka Ivankovic both stated that Maria Valtorta’s records of her conversations with Jesus are truthful.
Also Maria Valtorta´s work is mentioned in Don Ottavio´s Michelini writings. He is a relative obscure priest of Mirandola, Italy who in a series of Dictations and Visions which he recorded as given him by Christ and Mary from 1975 to 1979, he affirms, words dictated to him by Christ:
"I have dictated to Maria Valtorta, a victim soul, a marvelous work. Of this work I am the Author. You yourself, Son, have taken account of the raging reactions of Satan.... You have verified the resistance that many priests oppose to this work. This also proves, Son, that he who has not sensed in the Poem the savor of the Divine, the perfume of the Supernatural, has a soul encumbered and darkened. If it were -- I do not say "read" --but studied and meditated, it would bring an immense good to souls. This work is a well-spring of serious and solid culture.... This is a work willed by Wisdom and Divine Providence for the new times. It is a spring of living and pure water. It is I, the Word living and eternal, Who have given Myself anew as nourishment to the souls that I love. I, Myself, am the Light, and the Light cannot be confused with, and still less blend Itself with, the darkness. Where I am found, the darkness is dissolved to make room for the Light."
The particular Michelini´s book where this quotation was taken from is titled "La medida esta colmada" in its Spanish version and remains in the library of The Archidiocesan Minor Seminary of Monterrey in the city of San Pedro Garza García, Mexico. Book No.53765 It is worth of notice that the first page of the book has a seal who reads "Biblioteca Seminario Menor de Monterrey Donativo del Sr. Emmo. Adolfo Antonio Cardenal Suarez Rivera", trans. (Library of the Minor Seminary of Monterrey Donated by Sr. Eminentisim Adolfo Cardinal Suarez Rivera). He was many years Cardinal Archbishop of the Diocesis of Monterrey. This Spanish edition of Michelini´s writings where supposedly Christ himself defends Valtorta´s Work , comes with a copy of two letters between Bishops (within the first pages). The first letter is from the Bishop of León (México) Anselmo Zarza Bernal and is addressed to Miguel Garcia Franco at the time Bishop of Mazatlan (México), (Dated Nov 22, 1980). The response to Bishop Anselmo is the second letter. In the first letter, Bishop Anselmo recommends to Bishop Miguel the reading and reflection of Michelini´s book (where among many supposed dictations from Christ, there is one defeanding Valtorta´s work), on response (second letter) Bishop Miguel writes: "I received your letter...that came with the book" (Michelini´s Book) "...i find all the doctrine contained in the book 100% orthodox, more yet, in whole coincidence with the writings of Mrs. Conchita Cabrera de Armida..." "To My Priests" (Conchita Cabrera de Armida is a Méxican Mystic who is in process of canonization) "...and with the book of the Father Estaban Gobbi, books wich we have ecclesiastic aprobation".
Maria Valtorta died and was buried in Viareggio in 1961, at age 65. In 1973 with ecclesiastic permission, her remains were moved to Florence to the Chapel in the Grand Cloister of the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata di Firenze.
