Father Romualdo Migliorini and Maria Valtorta

Father Romualdo Maria Migliorini - Documentary Collection of the Maria Valtorta Heritage Foundation

Father Romualdo Maria Migliorini was a priest of the Servites of Mary, an order founded in the Middle Ages by seven hermits from Florence.

He was born on June 21, 1884, in Volegno di Stazzema (province of Lucca) in the Tuscan mountains. It is now a village of about sixty inhabitants. He was a missionary in Canada and South Africa, where he was in charge of an apostolic prefecture. A group photo shows him in Città del Capo with seventeen missionary bishops. Good that he was the only one who was not a bishop, he wore the pectoral cross around his neck like the others, as a sign of his dignity.

Due to health problems, he returned to Italy in 1939. He was 55 years old. He was sent to Viareggio as prior of the Sant’Andrea convent; he became the confessor and spiritual director of Maria Valtorta in 1942 and played a decisive role alongside her. Struck by the greatness of Maria Valtorta's Soul and asked her to write the story of her life because Maria Valtorta thought her end was Near. She complied in two months, from February to April 1943; she was 46 years old.

Of missionary culture, he had its pragmatism. At the darkest time of the War, he provided her with the necessary school notebooks. She first wrote her Autobiography there, but also all the other works that would be inspired to her until 1950. The whole covers 13,193 pages on 122 notebooks. Everything that Maria Valtorta wrote by hand, with a pen, on common notebooks, Father Romualdo Migliorini typed it on a typewriter making several carbon copies.

He began to make anonymous booklets which he distributed Against the express wishes of Maria Valtorta, praising their divine origin. This was a first cause of disagreement between them. He was also interested in two Women from Camaiore (a town near Viareggio) who experienced mystical manifestations, one a nun, the other a laywoman. Unfortunately, they deviated from their original vocations which Father Romualdo Migliorini did not see despite warnings from Maria Valtorta who suffered from the confusion that resulted. Father Romualdo Migliorini was recalled to Rome in 1946 and the relationship with Maria Valtorta became more distant.

He died on July 10, 1953, in Carsoli (L’Aquila) at the summer residence for students of his order, a few months after the last letter he wrote to Maria Valtorta.

The Encounter with Maria Valtorta

The Spiritual Director

When he learned that Maria Valtorta - who belonged to the parish of San Paolino - was looking for a spiritual director, he went to visit her in June 1942 and became her confessor on July 2 of that year, the day of the Visitation. In this same work, the editor specifies the role he played in the preparation of the manuscripts:

"Since Maria Valtorta was bedridden, she wrote by hand with a pen, resting on a cardboard placed on her bent knees. This is how she filled the seven notebooks of the Autobiography intended for Father Migliorini. She thought she had 'told him everything' and was preparing to die in Peace, certain she had nothing else to do in life. Good, on the contrary, she was going to fill another 122 notebooks after the unexpected dictation on April 23, 1943."

He types her visions

When she received the first dictation, on that memorable Good Friday 1943, [day of her first mystical vision] she confided in Marta Diciotti and immediately sent her to Father Migliorini, notes Emilio Pisani in his memoirs. When he came to see her, he reassured her about the origin of the message and invited her to continue writing what she would still receive. He himself followed, day by day, the prodigious output of Maria Valtorta and he typed copies of her handwritten notebooks which Maria Valtorta reread and sometimes annotated.

He wondered about this apostolate, but Jesus reassured him: consider his apostolate with Maria Valtorta as the extension of his vocation: "he can be sure, he is Good in his field of apostolate and will still have to work a lot there because the pagans are there and he is my Missionary." The booklets that he typed were for preliminary distribution to ecclesiastical authorities. But he soon started making them widely available.

He distributes them unwisely

Over time, he started making smaller booklets that he distributed for reading. Jesus warned him: "As for the Father (Migliorini), I am very, very happy that he uses my words for himself, for his Soul, for his preaching, to guide and console other Souls, whether priestly or lay. However, he must not reveal the source for the moment."

Although he kept Maria Valtorta’s name anonymous, he implied that these writings were dictated by Heaven to a "spokesperson" whom he spiritually directed. When Maria Valtorta learned of this, she was deeply saddened. She considered this distribution "untimely" and "imprudent" and feared above all being discovered. It even happened that, out of ignorance, pious people sought to comfort her in her infirmity by inviting her to read one of these booklets. Readers passed them from hand to hand, and copies "came back to the source," as Maria Valtorta said, inconsolable, when she found herself alone with Marta Diciotti.

He goes astray in accompanying dubious mystics

One can suppose he was captivated by this apostolate with a mystic because he began to provide spiritual accompaniment to two Women from Camaiore, a town near Viareggio, who exhibited mystical phenomena. One was religious, the other lay.

Maria Valtorta was aware of and interested in these two cases. She did not fail to provide inspired directives for them, which she conveyed to Father Romualdo Migliorini. However, these two mystics began to deviate from their initial mystical path and charisms.

On January 21, 1946, Jesus warned him: "Romualdo, beware of the multicolored glitter that dissolves into glitter! I always leave concrete things, well-ordered, clear, in the light. Beware of false saints who are more pernicious for my triumph than all notorious sinners. The holy supernatural exists. I bring it forth. It must be accepted and Believed. But one must not accept at first glance any little vase bearing the inscription 'Oil of divine wisdom,' or any closed book on which it is written: 'God is here'."

He is recalled to Rome

The point of friction lay in the fact that Father Migliorini refused to understand this development and remained entangled in a situation that also compromised Maria Valtorta, the "spokesperson" whose writings he divulged. The matter now exceeded the private framework. In March 1946, Father Migliorini was recalled to Rome, where he was to reside at the General House of his order. He passed on his instructions to his confrere, Father Berti, who took care of the writings without ever becoming Maria Valtorta’s spiritual director.

The correspondence continued, and Father Romualdo Migliorini continued to receive Maria Valtorta’s manuscripts in Rome. He attended the papal audience of February 26, 1948, but, overwhelmed with emotion, he could not speak.

However, the pace of their correspondence began to slow due to new misunderstandings, and it eventually ceased.

Gift conferred by divine Grace for the common good.

Gift conferred by divine Grace for the common good.