Padre Pio and Maria Valtorta
Born on May 25, 1887 and died on September 23, 1968 in San Giovanni Rotondo (PYeslles). Canonized by John Paul II on June 16, 2002. Padre Pio did more than recommend reading the work of Maria Valtorta; he requested its promotion.
Spiritual bonds were also established with the bedridden Maria Valtorta who benefited several times from his manifestations. These two mystics also share the wrath of the Holy Office which banned Padre Pio’s Mass and persecuted him according to the words of Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro (1891-1974), Archbishop of Bologna. In the homily he delivered shortly after the saint’s death, he used very harsh words against them[1].
Among these "persecutors" was Mgr Giovanni Pepe, in charge of book censorship at the Holy Office, the very same who had wanted to destroy Maria Valtorta's manuscripts in 1949. In 1952, he was dismissed by Pius XII for having placed eight books about Padre Pio on the Index without his approval. A rare decision because it was the first time a pope openly opposed the Holy Office by publishing in the Osservatore Romano on August 5, two days later, a nota di accomodamento (mitigation)[2] by Cardinal Giuseppe Pizzardo (1877-1970).
Padre Pio recommends the work of Maria Valtorta
These testimonies and excerpts of the work related to Padre Pio have been collected and published by the Maria Valtorta Heritage Foundation.
To one of his penitents
To Elisa Lucchi, a "spiritual daughter" of Padre Pio, who asked him in confession, one year before his death [thus in 1967], for advice on reading "The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me", Padre Pio replied: "I do not advise you, I order you[3]."
To a print media journalist
Padre Pio’s encouragement to read The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me is even more explicit in the testimony of Nonna Susanna[4], a columnist in the magazine entitled “Vita Femminile,” who wrote in 1972 to Emilio Pisani, who was president of the Maria Valtorta Heritage Foundation:Sir Director,As of tomorrow I will send you the issues of the magazine “Vita” in which we have reproduced chapters of Maria Valtorta’s “Poema dell’Uomo-Dio” (The Gospel as It Was Revealed to Me). You must know that, a few months before her birth into Heaven [thus in 1968], it was Padre Pio who asked me to read these works and to publish chapters in our magazine “Vita Femminile”. He loved reading our magazine and from time to time he would tell me what he wanted published. He absolutely wanted the magazine always available at the “Sollievo della Sofferenza” hospital and so every week I sent out 900 copies. I pointed out to the good Father that because of the little time available, I could not read the 10 volumes. Smiling, he replied: « You will read them and you will listen to me».
My only regret was not obeying his request before his death. I wrote to Father Avidano, informing him that good Padre Pio wanted this work to spread among the Familys. Since Father Avidano also knew these works for having read them, I was therefore placing an order for several copies to send to our associates. Father Avidano gave me volume 1 and, during one of his visits to Bologna, he also gave me volume 9, telling me he used these works for his personal meditations and that often he cried.
[…] I wrote this so you know that the merit for the dissemination of Maria Valtorta’s works that we accomplish is entirely due to Padre Pio and Father Avidano. […]
To a mystic close to Pius XII
The young Luigina Sinapi, now Venerable, was presented to him in the 1920s because of the mystical phenomena she experienced, which were confirmed by Padre Pio who accompanied her spiritually throughout her life and whom she visited several times in San Giovanni Rotondo. It happened that the mystic foretold, in the 1930s, the accession of Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII) to the papacy and the future Apparitions of Tre Fontane (1947). The credibility she gained made her a confidante whom the Sovereign Pontiff would willingly consult. In 1950, she intervened, by command of Heaven, with the Holy Office to reproach it for the blockade it imposed on the work of Maria Valtorta. She informed the Holy Father. Nothing indicates that Padre Pio (himself subject to the Holy Office) was informed, but it is probable.
The paths of Maria Valtorta and Padre Pio were so close that a book was devoted to their similarity[5].
Padre Pio manifests himself to Maria Valtorta
The Notebooks of 1943, May 13:
By Against, I saw (in a dream) Padre Pio of Pietrelcina and spoke to him. I saw him, still in a dream, in ecstasy after Mass; I saw his penetrating gaze and I glimpsed the scar of the stigmata on his hand when he took mine. And I smelled his scent, not in a dream but awake this time. No garden full of fully blossomed flowers can exhale the paradisiacal fragrances that filled my room the night of July 25 to 26, 1941, and the afternoon of September 21, 1942, at the very moment when one of our friends was talking about me to Padre Pio (I was unaware that he had left for San Giovanni Rotondo)[6]. Both times, I obtained the graces requested. Marta[7] also smelled the scent. It was so strong it woke her up. Then it suddenly stopped, just as it had come. But smelling a scent is nothing unusual. Even this morning, after a cruel night of agony, I smelled it. In fact, it woke me from a sleep that had finally taken hold of me at dawn. It was six o’clock when I was awakened. The window was closed, I kept no flowers in my room at night, I have no perfumes, the door was closed. No odor could therefore have entered from outside. It was like a column of fragrance on the right side of my bed. It disappeared as it had come, leaving me a sweetness in my heart. To say it is the smell of such and such a flower is to say little. All fragrances enter into this scent. The odorous sources mix as if the souls of all the flowers created stirred in a celestial round dance.
Padre Pio’s prophecy
To Father Corrado M. Berti, who wondered about the recognition of the work of Maria by the Church, then facing opposition from the Holy Office, Padre Pio replied confidently: "One will come who will do all"[8]
To go further
Notes and references
Sources: "Chrétiens Magazine", special issue from March 2009 - "Padre Pio and Maria Valtorta", Emilio Pisani, 2000, Editions Centro Editoriale Valtortiano, ISBN 8879870734 - Bollettino Valtortiano No. 39 January, June 1989.
- ↑ He speaks bluntly of "unworthy pastors," "infidelity," and "abominations" (Cardinal Lercaro’s homily, fully cited in the appendix of Padre Pio, the Saint of the 20th Century, Luigi Peroni, pp. 174-176).
- ↑ See facsimile, Regarding a Decree of the Holy Office.
- ↑ Emilio Pisani, Padre Pio and Maria Valtorta, CEV editions, 2000, testimony of Rosi Giordani, p.68.
- ↑ Nonna Susanna ("Grandma Suzanne") was the pseudonym of Sister Maria Veronica Algranati. She was the founder of a Church movement and is among the twelve saints and founders of movements who, to this day, endorse the edifying and beneficial nature of the work of Maria Valtorta.
- ↑ Emilio Pisani, Padre Pio and Maria Valtorta, CEV editions, 1999. Pamphlet paralleling the two biographies.
- ↑ This "Odor of sanctity" is characteristic of Padre Pio and more generally of Heaven. Maria Valtorta identified part of the fragrances that compose it.
- ↑ Marta Diciotti was born in Lucca in 1910 and lived alongside Maria Valtorta, lovingly assisting her, from 1935 until the death of the infirm author on October 12, 1961. She died in Viareggio on February 5, 2001.
- ↑ Padre Pio and Maria Valtorta, CEV editions, 2000, p. 8. The interlocutor of Padre Pio is not named, but Emilio Pisani, author of the pamphlet, later stated orally (October 2017) that it was indeed Father Berti who reported the fact to him.
