Dear Fr. Flader,

     Please accept another point of view regarding the Poem of the Man-God by Maria Valtorta.

1. As to the Vatican mistake of placing the first edition on the Index, this was corrected when the second edition was presented to the Holy Office in 1962.  Then Pope Paul placed the whole set into his seminarians library.

Pope Benedict has allowed the work to be published according to Bishop Roman Danylak, who gave the English edition his full imprimatur.  From his website:

Ecclesiastical Approbations

     In 1947, Fr. Migliorini, OSM, together with Valtorta's future theological censor, Fr. Conrad Berti, OSM, his confrere in the Servites of Mary, succeeded in having the first complete Italian typescript of The Poem of the Man-God submitted to the then reigning Pope Pius XII, for his evaluation.  After personally reading the Work and acquainting himself with Valtorta's Visions and Dictations, Pius XII granted a special audience to both Fathers Migliorini and Berti and their Prior, Father Andrew M. Cecchin, OSM, on February 26, 1948.  At that audience, he directed them to publish the Work without omitting anything, not even the explicit assertions reporting "Visions" and "Dictations":

Publish this work as it is. There is no need to give an opinion on its origin, whether it be extraordinary or not: whoever reads it will understand.

     [These days] we hear of so many visions and revelations. I am not saying that all of them would be true, but there can be some of them that are authentic.

     Because of its obvious importance as an endorsement of the authenticity of Valtorta's Work by the Supreme Head of the Church, recent critics of the Poem now attempt to impugn this Papal audience as a "fabrication" of its promotional literature.  The fact that the Pope did grant this audience, however, is historically documented. Indeed, no less a personage than Edouard Cardinal Gagnon, writing to the Maria Valtorta Research Center from the Vatican on October 31, 1987, referred to Pope Pius XII's action as: "the kind of official Imprimatur granted before witnesses by the Holy Father in 1948."

     As a result of this "Official Imprimatur" of the Supreme Authority of the Church, Fr. Conrad Berti and Valtorta's publisher, Emilio Pisani, felt authorized to bring out the first Italian edition of her Poem of the Man-God in four volumes from 1956-1959. However this was done as an anonymous work at Valtorta's request, and without the theological annotations of later editions to clarify ambiguous passages. It was perhaps for these reasons that in 1959, the Holy Office, apparently ignorant of the Official Imprimatur granted earlier by Pius XII, thus invalidly placed the Poem on the former Index of Forbidden Books. This was in effect to overturn the hierarchical structure of the Church, while at the same time violating Canon Law which outlaws any such reversal of a decision of the Supreme Head of the Church by a subsidiary Vatican Congregation, or even by appeal to an Ecumenical Council.

     This censure was perhaps due also to the Holy Office's ignorance of the favorable impressions made by Valtorta's Poem on Cardinal Joseph Pizzardo, Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, and expressed by him in a spirit of affection and of friendship to Father Conrad Berti. However, the Cardinal Secretary's favorable views were apparently never communicated to his subordinates or their successors in the Holy Office.

 http://heartofjesus.ca/MariaValtorta/M%20A%20R%20I%20A.htm

     Archbishop George Pearce said that he could not imagine anybody with an open mind who read Valtorta, who did not think that Valtorta's work was inspired by God.

     His carefully nuanced statement does not literally say that Catholics are required to believe Valtorta's work is of Divine origin, but he strongly suggests that it must be of supernatural origin.

     This is quite a significant statement by one of the successors of the Apostles, in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.  Catholics believe bishops have the charism of teaching authority.

     Msgr. Michelini had locutions from Jesus Who said: "In a regenerated Church, Valtorta will have wide acclaim."

2. The objections of fact or history are totally mistaken.

     Here you have research showing the most amazing accuracy in her 4,000 page Masterpiece:

http://www.saveourchurch.org/descriptionspoem.pdf

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blscrewdriver.htm]

3. As to reports (also in the unsigned Vatican newapaper of 1960), about doctrinal or moral abberations in the POEM, recall that 2 years later the Holy Office allowed the work to be published, St. Padre Pio recommended it, and countless souls both learned and simple who have read it affirm the perfect doctrinal and moral purity of the Work. It is a major corrective to Modernistic Scripture "scholarship", and a way for priests especially to correct deviations in their formation.

     As to Mary's words at the scene of Calvary, read the context and you will the expressive sorrowful love which uses metaphor and hyperbole to show her great love. It is both beautiful and fitting.

Please let the faithful know of the riches of this work. I have read it four times and nothing so helps with both the spiritual life and the sacred ministry.

God bless you in your work for His Love.

Yours sincerely in Christ,

Rev. Fr. Kevin Robinson

St. Ignatius Retreat House

209 Tackora Trail

Ridgefield CT 06877 USA

Tel 1(203) 431 0201

file:///C:/Documents and Settings/Owner/My Documents/My Pictures/tombstoneMariaValtorta.JPG

Crypt of the Basilica of Our Lady's Assumption in Florence. The servant of God will one day be canonized.

Crypt of the Basilica of Our Lady's Assumption in Florence. The servant of God will one day be canonized.