Maria Valtorta - What to Think?

Maria Valtorta - What to Think?

Cover page CEV 2025
Work Details
Author	Collective under the direction of the Maria Valtorta Heritage Foundation
Full title	Maria Valtorta - What to Think? Elements of Discernment
Pages	249
Publication	January 2025
Publisher	Centro Editoriale Valtortiano
ISBN	978-88-7987-411-3
Distribution	Bookstore - online sales - Publisher's website

This work gathers historical and unpublished documents in French from the 1950s until recently: testimonies of high dignitaries of the Church, attestations from theologians, saints, and witnesses, letters from bishops, opinions of some scientists who studied the work.

These elements will help with the Discernment of each reader.

Its content largely corresponds to Pro e contro Maria Valtorta by Emilio Pisani, published in Italy since 1995 and constantly updated. The latest original version has been translated by Yves d'Horrer and the new elements collected under the direction of the Maria Valtorta Heritage Foundation.

Summary of the Work

• Introduction

• Maria Valtorta and her works

• Father Berti (Memories of Emilio Pisani)

• The approval of Pius XII and the veto of the Holy Office

• The placement on the Index of prohibited books: The decree (51) - The motivations (52)

• The attestations of 1952 and a petition to Pius XII: Augustin Bea (59) - Alfonso Carinci (62) - Camillo Corsanego (68) – Lorenzo Ferri (72) - Giorgio La Pira (declared venerable by Pope Francis) (74) –Ugo Lattanzi (74) - Angelo Mercali (76) - Nicola Pende (78) - Maurizio Raffa (80) - Vittorio Tredici (83) - A petition to the Pope (85)

• Testimonies of saints and blesseds: Mother Teresa (88) - Maria Ines Teresa Arias (89) - Padre Pio (92) - Giorgio La Pira (94)

• The testimonies of Blessed Father Allegra: Extracts from his letters (95) - From his diary (99) - A full report (115)

• A letter from Cardinal Siri

• Interventions of the review "La Civiltà Cattolica": First mentions of the Work (127) - A malevolent end (127) - A benevolent opening (135)

• The opinion of some scholars: Gianfranco Nolli (138) - Gabriele M. Roschini (140) - Diego Fabbri (143) - Gregorio Penco (144) - Cornelio Fabro (145) - Mario Colpo (148)

• The letter from Cardinal Ratzinger

• The Society of St. Paul and an article in the monthly "Jesus": The position of the Society of St. Paul (158) – The article in "Jesus" (160)

• Pseudo-mystic among mystical authors

• The letter from Mgr Tettamanzi

• Letters from bishops

• A homily by the nuncio Mgr Piergiacomo De Nicolò

• The failed opening of the beatification cause

• Collection of testimonies (215)

• Brief warning from the doctrinal Commission, and response from the Maria Valtorta Heritage Foundation

• The detractors in France: I. "The preexistence of the Virgin Mary" (doc. 3, p. 3) or "the antecedent creation of the Soul of Mary, separate from her body" (doc. 3, p.24) (225) - II. "The Incarnation of Satan in Judas" (doc. 3, p. 3 & p.24) (231) - III. "The way of expressing and conceiving the Incarnation of the Word" (doc. 3, p. 3) or certain "explicit or suggested doctrinal affirmations on the Incarnation of the Word" (doc. 3, p.24) (235)

• Testimonials in the media: - Etienne Albin (239) - Florian Boucansaud (240) - Andrea Bocelli (241)

Appendix

• [...] Public revelation and private revelations - their theological place (243)

• The titles and editions of the Work

Introduction to the Work

When he undertook the writing of Pro e contro Maria Valtorta, Emilio Pisani (1934-2023) felt the need to relate all the twists and turns that he had witnessed firsthand in the heroic times. Supporters and opponents of this life of Jesus received through visions, indeed opposed each other at the highest level of the Church since before being published, it had been submitted to the arbitration of the Pope himself.

Such a situation was not new in the Church: already the visions of the venerable Maria de Ágreda (1602-1665) had unleashed passions that the support of eight popes had not sufficed to calm. Heaven took care of it: the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which crystallized the confrontation, was later proclaimed and then confirmed by the Apparitions at Lourdes. Heaven, which had inspired the mystic, endorsed the choice of the Church.

Regarding revelations from Heaven, time always works. The Acts of the Apostles report this judgment of Gamaliel before the Sanhedrin: what comes from men vanishes by itself, but what comes from God endures against all odds. By this criterion, one can only observe the longevity and the expansion of the Work of Maria Valtorta, which impose themselves on everyone not in terms of desertion of the Church and apostasy, but on the contrary in terms of conversion and return to God.

Emilio Pisani felt it was necessary to present the facts, testimonies, and documents so that each person could form an opinion on the licit and profitable character of this private revelation. Thus he expresses, in his latest introduction, his disappointment and incomprehension to see that some refused to examine the pros and cons. For their prejudices, the pros were superfluous.

Thus Emilio Pisani was faced with the impenetrable wall, even for God, of free will or more precisely an arbitrary choice that surpasses all rationality: those who want to will do it, those who do not want to will not do it. "The Heart has its reasons which Reason ignores," said Blaise Pascal noting this divorce, and the Gospel speaks abundantly of eyes that do not see and ears that do not hear.

Time has passed since the heroic times, but new facts and changes in behavior have not altered this observation.

Let the marvels of the Work be presented and some will see the finger of God where others will suspect the claw of Satan. Let readers express their enthusiasm for this Pilgrimage through time and some will praise the regained evangelical fervor while others will detect sectarian practices. Let these readers desire to belong to a Church movement and some will see the breath of the Spirit while others will reject a subversive entryism.

In that case, is it still necessary to present the testimonies and events concerning this revelation? Yes, more than ever.

Fundamentally a private revelation must be discerned and has nothing to fear from the truth, quite the contrary since this is how the breath of the Spirit is distinguished in the humanity of a mystic. Moreover, these gifts from Heaven having an individual and not universal scope, require an enlightened Conscience.

By taking up Emilio Pisani's work, completing it with new facts and broadening it, the ambition of this Valtorta Dossier remains the same: to allow the reader, potential or confirmed, to access factual information on the main questions posed by this successful Work:

• Maria Valtorta and her beatification cause.
• The meaning and content of her main work: The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me.
• The opinion of theologians, historians, and experts on the remarkable data of her Work.
• The place and contribution of this work in the life of the Church.

Maria Valtorta experienced the emotional barrenness of her environment without falling into the dryness of heart. She pushed the love of Christ to the point of desiring to walk in His footsteps on the painful paths of Calvary. She experienced misunderstandings and betrayals without ever falling into Revolt or disobedience. She experienced total abandonment on her sickbed, which left her only the true wealth she shares with us: intimacy with Christ as a prelude to eternal happiness.

Indeed, one fact stands out: every reader of Maria Valtorta who begins reading an episode of The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me finishes reading in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, whom the Work of Maria Valtorta entirely covers without Contradictions. The reader then becomes a pilgrim through time and space following Jesus. The Gospel lights up for him and spreads throughout the entire Bible to which the Work of Maria Valtorta refers explicitly or implicitly in 87% of the 1,334 chapters that compose it. No commercially available life of Jesus offers such precision and captivating fidelity.

It is therefore the path leading to the Gospel that is new and not the Revealed Word which is eternal. This path is one of discovery and renewal. Christ led no victorious war, conquered no empire, built no city or palace. He died in disgrace. In the eyes of men, His life would therefore be insignificant were it not for having founded this spiritual Big Bang, in perpetual expansion, that dominates all of human history from the first times of Creation until his return to God. The prologue of John, which recalls it, is fully alive in the Work of Maria Valtorta, contrary to a contemporary current that sees the Church only as a human construction.

Doctrinal conformity was the first thing verified: after Pius XII who encouraged its publication "as is", it was Fr. Berti, professor of sacramental theology at the Pontifical Marian University, who scrutinized every line of text, noting more than 7,000 scriptural references. In his turn, Mgr Ugo Lattanzi, dean of the Pontifical Lateran Faculty, examined the work on behalf of the Bishop of Sora (the diocese of the publisher) who intended to grant the imprimatur. He concluded not only that nothing opposed Catholic Doctrine but that the work required a "preternatural" origin, that is, beyond the human capacities of the author.

Not even the censors, despite themselves, managed only to identify "amid such a great display of theological knowledge" that a "heresy avoided." It was a position on the role of the Virgin Mary ... which was taken up, four years after this article, by the dogmatic constitution Lumen gentium §53.

In 2010, Benedict XVI noted, based on the experience of the Church, that a "private revelation can introduce new expressions, bring out new forms of piety or deepen old ones." Again Heaven had sent a forerunner sign to the Church.

This explains why Fr. Roschini, consultor at the Holy Office, founder of the Pontifical Marian University, and author of numerous reference works on the Virgin Mary, confessed that the mariology contained in the Work of Maria Valtorta exceeded the sum of all he had read on the subject.

But what captures the reader's attention at first glance is the relevance of the material data contained in the Work and gives it that so vivid aspect. To date, nearly 20,000 have been identified as credible in completely different fields (history, fauna and flora, archeology, geography, astronomy, customs, exegesis...) They are included in the narrative of the visions as contextual elements and not as specialized comments.

Several locations, described with precision, were only confirmed later by archeological discoveries. This is the case, for example, of Bethsaida, uncovered forty years after its location in Maria Valtorta, which allows, on this occasion, to precisely locate the house of the Apostle Philip in the discovered ruins. It also precisely locates the cave of the valley of Arbela where Jesus withdrew with His Apostles before electing them to this function.

The visions of Maria Valtorta are not a historical work in the strict sense but constitute a raw material, a trace of past times, which academic research is beginning to appropriate … and the controversy seeks "manifest errors." A dual phenomenon that converges to test the value and authenticity of the Work and to deepen its meaning, which reveals itself progressively with discoveries. Such was the case of the citation of Galen that Jesus makes in the Work. It was a blatant anachronism since Galen lived after Christ who could therefore not quote him. This "manifest error" remained for sixty years until research declared half of Galen's writings apocryphal, then identified a namesake, a friend of Virgil whom Jesus could then evoke. There are many such "manifest errors" that later discoveries transform into rare knowledge.

The same for the mention of only one pyramid seen from Matharaea in Egypt where the Holy Family found refuge to escape the massacre ordered by Herod. Everyone knows there are three pyramids. But only one who observes them from Matharaea, as Maria Valtorta does, sees that the largest of the pyramids hides the other two in its alignment.

The contradictory debates that flourish in reaction to the success of the Work of Maria Valtorta are thus profitable and salutary in more than one way.

The Church gives private revelations an official status but does not welcome them spontaneously in the large majority. It even holds them as a devalued by-product of popular piety. An evidence of this is the synod on The Word of God in the Life and Mission of the Church desired by Benedict XVI. Only one proposal among the 55 resulting dealt with private revelations: in a single, very general sentence, buried in a proposition largely devoted … to sects! This amalgam speaks volumes about the misunderstanding that reigns between the popular successes that these private revelations encounter and an established hierarchy.

Fortunately, the "sensus fidei" of the people historically reinforcements the support of the popes. This is what happened for this gap of the synod fathers: Benedict XVI pulled private revelations out of the rut where they had been placed to show how and why they should not be neglected.

The Cardinal Ratzinger was long put forward as absolute proof of the rejection that the Church bore towards the work of Maria Valtorta. Indeed, he feared the dangers of such a work among a credulous public. Only history did not stop there: in the 1990s he discovered the work of Maria Valtorta in the laudatory articles that Abbé Richard published in l’Homme nouveau of which he was a reader. He asked Marcel Clément, the editor-in-chief, to suspend these articles while he verified the doctrinal conformity of this work. One year later he declared that nothing opposed the faith of the Catholic Church in the work and that its dissemination could resume.

At the same time, Emilio Pisani, unaware of this fact, visiting the Palace of the Holy Office, was told by a secretary he knew that "upstairs, they had changed their mind about Maria Valtorta who was considered a good book."

A few years later, Cardinal Ratzinger published his theological commentary on the secret of Fatima in which private revelations were Homilies and valued. Message he repeats in his aforementioned synodal exhortation.

It was the time when he beatified two outspoken promoters of the work of Maria Valtorta and when a archbishop came to preside over the 50th anniversary of the death of Maria Valtorta.

Ten years later, the Archbishop of Lucca, the referring bishop for the cause of Maria Valtorta, delivered a catechesis which he extended on several occasions, including the anniversary mass of the gift of visions. These catecheses happily apply the teaching of Benedict XVI and of the Church on private revelations to the work of Maria Valtorta.

As for great intellectuals such as Mgr Laurentin or Fr. Roschini, initially reluctant, the actual reading of Maria Valtorta changed Cardinal Ratzinger's view on her.

François-Michel Debroise

Preliminary stage to canonization recognizing that a deceased person can be called Blessed because of their holiness.

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

Action of a person (called an "apostate") who renounces their Religion and faith, who publicly abandons their Religion (to adopt another or not). It thus announces their choice to religious representatives.

Manifestation of the Holy Spirit after the Bible to a person or particular group. It is individual and relative.

In a Christian sense, study concerning God and divine things in the light of Revelation.

Related to the Holy Scriptures (the Bible).

(University) Responsible for the quality of teaching, management of faculty and students. (Institution) Head of the corporation.

Solemn document of the pope or a council defining essential points of the Catholic faith.

Analysis of the historical, cultural, and literary context of Biblical texts to better understand what they meant at the time they were written and how they can be interpreted today.

Assembly of Church leaders (mostly bishops), convened to give opinions on matters of faith, morals, or organization.