Correspondence of Maria Valtorta with Monsignor Alfonso Carinci

Correspondence with Mgr Carinci

CEV 2025 cover page
Work Details
Author	Maria Valtorta, Mgr Alfonso Carinci
Full title	Correspondence with Mgr Carinci
Pages	123
Publication	January 2025
Publisher	Centro Editoriale Valtortiano
ISBN	978-88-7987-410-6
Distribution	Bookstore – online sales – Publisher's website
First Italian edition
Title	Lettere a Mons. Carinci
Publication	2006
Publisher	Centro Editoriale Valtortiano
French translation
Translator	Yves d'Horrer

Born in Rome on November 9, 1862, Archbishop Mgr Carinci was secretary of the Congregation of Rites (now Dicastery for the Causes of Saints). This close associate of Pius XII was therefore very attached to respecting liturgical rules.

On one of his visits to Maria Valtorta, whom he considered saintly, he himself celebrated a Mass in her room.

He had no doubt about the supernatural origin of the work, in which "the ‘doctrinal’ part is not separated from the narrative: it is artistically interwoven. It contains many speeches of Our Lord, the Apostles, or other characters. I found nothing contrary to the Gospel there. It is rather a good complement that highlights its meaning." (letter to the publisher dated January 17, 1952).

He died on December 6, 1963, two years after Maria Valtorta.

The publisher states:

"This volume collects the letters that Maria Valtorta had sent to Mgr Alfonso Carinci, which he returned to her in his time.

Most of these letters are handwritten, but some are typed. They are dated January 9, 1949, January 20, 1949, March 8, 1949, March 16, 1949, April 22, 1949, July 16, 1949, and July 24, 1950. Maria Valtorta wrote the drafts and Marta Diciotti – the woman who lived with her to assist her – typed them on a typewriter, making a carbon copy. The corrections, which make the drafts almost illegible, suggest that the transcription was done by dictation. Maria Valtorta reread the typed letter, corrected typing errors with a pen, inserted some commas, and signed it. In some letters, she added her address below her signature.

We also keep some draft handwritten letters.

As for Mgr Carinci’s responses, they are all in his own hand. They are often notes on letterhead paper. Mgr Carinci kept drafts of some of his letters, and we store them with those he sent to Maria Valtorta.

We have inserted some notes in this collection by placing them within brackets."

Book summary

It contains the chronological exchange of correspondence between January 9, 1949 and December 23, 1955. It is preceded by a presentation of Maria Valtorta and includes, in an appendix, the attestation submitted to the Pope by Mgr Carinci, dated January 17, 1952.

Text of the first letter

"Viareggio, January 9, 1949

Excellency,

Never would I have dared to address Your Excellency, except that I remember April 11 last year as a day of Grace: my soul then received great comfort from your Presence and felt growing hope that the Lord’s will (the approval of the Work) would be fulfilled soon thanks to your benevolent interest.

But given the turn events have taken, I feel today such a need to clarify certain points and to ask that others be clear to me, that I feel compelled to address you.

I therefore pray the priestly and paternal charity of Your Excellency to listen to my poor soul, guilty only of serving the Lord.

I use the word guilty, not because it would be culpable in the eyes of God and the righteous to render the ordinary or extraordinary service to which the Lord calls a soul, but because it seems that I am judged guilty by those, in particular, whose judgment matters to me. I do not care for myself, since I refrain from judging, but because it harms the vitality of God’s gift: the Work, this extraordinary way of serving God that I did not desire, believe me, but that God willed.

It is reported to me that certain prelates incessantly create strong difficulties to hinder the publication of the Work.

I do not know the reasons invoked to justify these obstacles, but it seems to me that none of the measures taken are founded.

I beg you, implore you to listen to me. Every accused, every defendant has the right to explain themselves and to appeal to human judgment.

May it be allowed to me as well, if only to bring light into my soul which, frankly, is as if clouded by the storm caused by the collapse of too many certainties.

I have been taught that the Pope is infallible in matters of faith and morals, that he is the supreme head of the Church and the Father of all Catholics. I was taught that bishops receive the fullness of the priesthood, therefore the lights of the Holy Spirit, and consequently that their judgment is enlightened by God. This is what my Religion teachers taught me in catechism; I have always believed it and still do.

Moreover, the divine Master taught me that Wisdom, that is The Holy Spirit, cannot give opposing inspirations on any point whatsoever, since the Spirit who inspires is one; and also this: woe to the kingdom divided against itself by opposing views of its key members, for it is then that action perishes and is replaced by confusion that troubles the little ones of the flock. He also taught me that for this reason, in constituting his Church, he chose Peter to place at its head: he wanted this to last until the end of time, because the word of the leader, in case of contradictions, has a force that ends all opposition. Finally, He keeps repeating to me that whoever, by his election to the Chair of Peter, becomes another Christ, cannot fail to recognize the Christ who speaks in the doctrinal pages of the Work.

I may not be using the appropriate terms, but I beg you to bear in mind that I have done no theological studies. However, I believe I have expressed the essence of the teaching I have received.

Now, what is happening today is in open opposition to all this, and it is a whole world, the world of my absolute confidence in the teachings of the Church, that collapses before my eyes. A painful stupor penetrates my soul and disturbs it.

If it were enough to seek refuge in God to obtain satisfaction, I would not be troubled. But seeking refuge in God, who loves me infinitely and whom I love with all my capacities, is not enough to accomplish His will on the Work. For that, men’s permissions are necessary, and many refuse to give them.

I have been assured many times – and I cannot imagine this to be false – that His Holiness is not opposed to the Work.

So I ask: "Why does he not intervene with all his authority before which all others must bow?"

I am answered: "Because one cannot reach him, nor send him any writings on this matter."

But how can a father know the needs of his children if their voice is prevented from reaching him? How can this common Father grant a direct and benevolent interview to his child who asks him for it if this plea is blocked from reaching his heart?

Forgive me, Excellency, if this letter exceeds all bounds.

But I am faced with the need to clarify my thoughts once and for all, and to shed light on certain truths that may have been lost sight of.

I could understand these obstacles if I demanded that the Work bear my name, or even if a simple indication could allow the curious to discover the person who received it. But precisely, I do not do that. I want quite the opposite. And if sometimes I have raised my voice too strongly, it is because it happened that some, believing to be helpful to me, wanted to lift the veil on my person, which absolutely must remain unknown. If others have erred, this must not fall upon me who had nothing to do with it, nor harm the Work: that would be a truly disproportionate punishment for the error committed and the good the Work could do, but would no longer do if harmed so.

For my part, I repeat and am ready to sustain it before anyone, I have always sought to keep obscurity and silence on myself as well as on the extraordinary grace I received without any merit of mine. Even the priest of my parish, who knows me and has been confessing me for fifteen years, can testify: it was only two years ago – when the superiors of the Order of the Servites of Mary forbade the Servite fathers of the city convent to bring me Holy Communion, my only joy and my strength in my long and painful infirmity – that he learned from me, in confession, of the extraordinary gift I had received. He would never have known it if I had not been forced by this prohibition and by the need to explain why the Servites of Mary no longer brought me Holy Communion although I am a Servite tertiary, obliging me to trouble the two priests of my parish, already overloaded with work with the 15,000 souls they serve.

I would understand these obstacles if I demanded that the Work be qualified as revealed. But I do not. God does not ask for this to be proclaimed today; He leaves that for those who can do so later, and if He does not command it, I never ask anything for myself.

I would understand these obstacles if the Work were contrary to Religion and morality. But this is not the case, as many competent people have now affirmed, first and foremost the Holy Father who, as I have been told, keeps it in his private library [in the form of the typed copy in twelve fascicles, under the provisional title Words of Eternal Life, as the Work was not yet published].

I would understand these obstacles if it were a new gospel, invented by my brain. But as I have shown to Father Berti and as anyone with a righteous intention can notice, the Work contains all, I say all, chapters and verses of Saint Matthew, Saint Mark, Saint Luke, and Saint John, explained by Jesus. It clarifies points hitherto obscure and apparently denied by the facts of these twenty centuries, like the verse "This generation shall not pass until all is fulfilled," reported by three evangelists and widely quoted in the epistles of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. The four Gospels are completed by these "other things Jesus did" to which Saint John refers at the end of his Gospel.

So why prevent an imprimatur and nullify the approval of an excellent bishop, implicitly judging that despite the fullness of the priesthood he received, he had an erroneous opinion?

I have read very few books of religious character: the lives of five saints, that of Father Moresco on the children of Fatima, and very recently The Leaven in the Dough by Abbot Godin. I see that all of them received this approval, whether biographies of the dead or the living. Now it does not seem to me that, when they quote gospel passages, they always remained very faithful to the text. Yet they were approved. I read, more than twenty years ago, Papini’s Life of Christ. It is the only life of Christ I have read. Literarily, it is beautiful, but it shows us a Christ who is not the Christ. And yet, it met with no opposition.

Even if I have not read them, I know there are books containing theories truly opposed to God, which I had to combat, out of love for the truth, inside the minds of those who held them as good.

These works quietly spread among the masses, and no one is offended by them as they pass for scientific books. A poor science, indeed, if one denies the Creator, creation, the soul, and the beyond, according to what Jesus Christ teaches us!

Eh well! not all these books are fought as much as Words of Eternal Life.

How can that be? For my part, I claim that this battle is the best proof that the Work truly comes from God, because like all that is from God, it is a "sign of Contradiction."

However, it displeases God that his gift lies inert, while it would be so necessary to be read by so many strayed...

Excellency: on April 11, I asked you for one thing only: the approval of the Work in the supreme interest of the Holy Father.

I ask it again today.

And it is looking at the small frame you kindly left me as a memento of your visit, it is looking at Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus who served me as a guide in offering love to the Lord, to the Church, and to souls, that I beg you: "Be for me a very gentle Shepherd, understanding as was the Bishop of Bayeux for little Thérèse Martin."

Carry my cry of supplication to His Holiness! All my hopes rest on Him.

Help me to satisfy the Lord, who wants the Work to reach the crowds that too many political Doctrines and unrestrained worldliness bring back to a terrifying paganism, or even, more than paganism, to hatred of God and his Church. This horrifies and grieves all Catholics and people of good sense, myself among them, who would like above all to put an end to what saddens the Holy Father, as all Christianity, and offends the Lord.

I apologize for having bothered you and for allowing myself to send you a typed letter. But my condition has worsened over the past two months and this forbids me to write by hand.

I kiss the pastoral hand of Your Excellency, and I ask you for your blessing.

Maria Valtorta

113, via Fratti, Viareggio"

In-depth research on God, faith, religious Doctrine.

Layperson (laic) living in the world but following the rules of life of a particular religious order.