70 yrs of release of "The Man of God" allowed to publish by Pius XII but banned by John XXIII

The Peace of God to all that belong to the Light,
Dear Readers,

We are reaching the 70 anniversary of the presentation of 'The Man of God", a life of Jesus Christ that is more detailed in many aspects that anything we can read of him and his mother in the gospels.

Maria Valtorta was the author, by many believed to be a truly mystic, raised Roman Catholic, a middle social class woman that suffered a terrible physical aggression in her twenties by an unknown man who struck her in the back with an iron rod.

She was bedridden in Viareggio, Italy, for most of her life due to complications from being struck in the back at random while walking on a street. Valtorta was a member of the Third Order Servites of Mary, affiliated to the Franciscan order to which her spiritual director, Fr. Romuald Migliorini, O.S.M. belonged.

Her spiritual life was influenced by reading the autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux and, in 1925, at the age of 28, before becoming bedridden, she offered herself to God as a victim soul.

( ref www.mariavaltorta.com). On Friday 1943 she reported having a vision in which Jesus appeared and spoke to her. While Valtorta did not begin writing The Poem of the Man-God until 1944, pre-Poem writings included various topics such as Mariology, Darwinism, and suffering. She reported having many more visions and conversations with Jesus and the Virgin Mary and said that Jesus had asked her to record her visions in writing. She continued to write her visions in her notebooks until 1947.

She was reluctant to want to publish her handwrittings that were upto 15000 pages but in 1948 two Catholic priests convinced of the authenticity of the visions published a small first edition of them in a form a devotional book, that was presented in formal audience to H H Pope Pius XII. In front of witnesses the Holy father gave authorization to publish the material, an act that is called imprimatur by the supporters of the mysticism of Valtorta.

Shortly after April 1947, Father Berti presented the first copy of the work to Pope Pius XII, who on 26 February 1948 received Fathers Migliorini and Berti, along with their prior, Father Andrea Checchin, in special audience, as reported on the next day's L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.

Pls Check:
www.maria-valtorta.net...

It was not until 1956 that the book was published in great scale in Italian and there was no initial opposition from the Church to its circulation but after 3 years in book shops the Holy Inquisition manifested their concerns about what they claimed was a kind of Mormon book in Catholicism plagued of inconsistencies w.r.t. the actual accounts of the life of Christ according with the gospels.

As a consequence of this reaction H.H. John XXIII decided to follow the advise of the Inquisition and the book was censored and then put in the Index, that is the list of forbidden writings according with the Roman Catholic Church.

(ref www.valtorta.org) The Poem of the Man-God is not a sequential transcription of Valtorta's notebooks, because her reported visions (which were dated in her notebooks) were not in the same order as the flow of time in the narrative she wrote. For instance, she reported having a vision of The Last Supper on March 9, 1945 while another on the Beatitudes during the Sermon on the Mount was written more than two months later on May 24, 1945. The book as transcribed by her priest however, follows the life of Jesus in chronological form, with footnotes referring to the dates on which she wrote each episode

( from Acta Apostolica Sedis 1960) By a decree of 5 January 1960, published on instructions of Pope John XXIII, the Holy Office condemned the published work and included it in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum

The book remained in the index until H.H. Paul VI abolished its existence in 1965, as well as He changed the name of the Holy Inquisition to the Holy congregation for Doctrine of the faith.

Valtorta's followers argue that this in effect nullified the condemnation of 1959, since the Index no longer existed after 1965.

Others consider the abolition of the Index as not reversing the Church's opinion of the work. In 1960, the Holy Office condemned the work, as well as placing it on the Index; In Particular Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI), acting as head of the Congregation in 1985 wrote that "the Index retains its moral force despite its dissolution".

Famous Arguments in favor of the authenticity are:

Maria Valtorta's work is also mentioned in the writings of Monsignor Ottavio Michelini, a priest of the Diocese of Carpi, who reported a series of Dictations and Visions given to him by Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary from 1975 to 1979. He reported these words dictated to him by Christ:

I have dictated to Maria Valtorta, a victim soul, a marvelous work. Of this work I am the Author. ... If it were -- I do not say "read" --but studied and meditated, it would bring an immense good to souls. This work is a well-spring of serious and solid culture. ... It is a spring of living and pure water. ... I, Myself, am the Light, and the Light cannot be confused with, and still less blend Itself with, the darkness. Where I am found, the darkness is dissolved to make room for the Light

[from Messages of Our Lady from Medjugorje: Saint James Publishing, 1990: page 145)
A 2009 Yale University report further detailed the intricate connection between the Medjugorje apparitions and the writings of Maria Valtorta. The purported Medjugorje visionairies Marija Pavlovic and Vicka Ivankovic have stated that Maria Valtorta's records of her conversations with Jesus are truthful. According to a statement Ivankovic made on January 27, 1988, in 1981 the Virgin Mary told her at Medjugorje: "If a person wants to know Jesus he should read Maria Valtorta. That book is the truth". However Fr. Philip Pavich, OFM, an American Croatian Franciscan priest stationed in Medjugorje, sent a circular letter to the Medjugorje fans, questioning the purported visions of Maria Valtorta and the subsequent book.

( from www.valtorta.org ) Archbishop George Hamilton Pearce, S. M. wrote: "I find it tremendously inspiring. It is impossible for me to imagine that anyone could read this tremendous work with an open mind and not be convinced that its author can be no one but the Holy Spirit of God."

Famous criticism about the supposed divine origin of the visions that inspired The Man of God are:

According to Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J., "the long speeches of Jesus and Mary starkly contrast with the evangelists, who portray Jesus as 'humble, reserved; His discourses are lean, incisive.' Valtorta's fictionalized history makes Jesus sound 'like a chatterbox, always ready to proclaim Himself the Messiah and the Son of God,' or teach theology in modern terms. The Blessed Mother speaks like a 'propagandist' for modern Marian theology." In addition, Pacwa writes that the poem has "'many historical, geographical and other blunders.' For instance, Jesus uses screwdrivers (Vol. 1, pp. 195, 223), centuries before screws existed.

Pls check:www.wagner-werkzeug.de...

Let me clarify that I personally neither support Nor condemn it, only propose it for discussing famous visions.

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

I hadn't heard of this.

I'll give it a read.

Cheers

a reply to: The angel of light


Nice post.

a reply to: The angel of light

Very interesting. I hadn’t heard of this either. Very interesting cross-reference to the invention of screws as well. Have you come across the actual devotional book? Is it available? Thanks for the post.

a reply to: The angel of light

1st issue - no proof

2nd issue - Roman Catholic

Lets see there are four popes running around in this world......one in Russia, Greece, Alexandria and in Rome.

Need I say more.....

a reply to: TheFatefulDay

Hi,

Here it is in .pdf format, for the ones of you that can Not let anybody else control, or censor, your curiosity to read what is all this about.

I am Not sure if it is complete but seems to be anyway really long and is a transcript which fonts look to be from mid XX century.

One last warning: This material is on the Index of forbidden writings that None Catholic must read, once created by the Holy Inquisition.

The Index was suppressed in 1965 but I think is fair to prevent you before to click on the link.

Please check:

www.advancedchristianity.com...

Other famous books that are on the Index are:

- Meditations by Rene Descartes
- Pensees by Blaise Pascal,
- Traite sur le Tolerance of Voltaire,
- Emile by Jean jacques Rousseau
- Memoires by Giacomo Casanova
- Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert
- Paradise Lost by John Milton
- Principles of Political Economy, John Stuart Mill

Pls check:
en.wikipedia.org...

Thanks

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

The conundrum of to determine if the Man of God it is indeed a revelation of modern times or just a Novel is equivalent to establish if there is:

1) from one side indeed a still presently an active work of the Holy Ghost or the spirit of wisdom or the Tao, what ever way you want to call it, among the devote believers in the world that is talking to our humanity of messages coming from above, but also

2) it is bringing to discussion the role of Intuition on our time, that seems to shock in this modern concept of information, that is at present is treated as kind of commodity that is offered, demanded and traded, so always intellectual property of somebody, and used almost exclusively through technology.

With respect to these two interesting situations we have multiple points of view:

I. There are religious groups that consider that all the revelation that Humanity must get from above is already recorded in extremely old writings that they consider sacred, that come from well known wisemen of the past, spiritual leaders supposedly chosen or sent that founded religions that today are source of authority and then social power, and there is nothing else to add to them. Curiously each one of these groups claim to have the entire monopoly of the truth and that everybody else is wrong. In this Category are very diverse leaders from HH Pope Francis, the Ayatollahs of Iran, to the Dalai Lamma.

II. There are spiritual people that consider that those writings are just part of the spiritual tradition of humanity that remains alive and is still unfolding in our days through enlightened people, like seers, channels that are basically sensitive people born in that way. In this sense they claim this is an open source, perhaps a giant matrix of information, the so called collective unconscious, that is not under the control of none human authority what so ever. In this category we find people like Carl Jung, Mitchel of Nostradamus, Jean Dixon or Edgar Cayce.

III. There is Materialistic people that consider that the only flow of actual information that Humanity can trust is the one that is generated by modern science and transmitted through technological means and is entirely human and everything else is fiction, in other words they do not accept the role of inspiration at all and they put scientists in the role of supreme priests. In this category we have people like Steven P Jobs, Paul Allen or Bill Gates.

The point is who is right? there is indeed inspiration and Intuition from a supreme source of wisdom that is not under the control of anybody in this world, or that has granted copyrights discretionally to some authorities to minister that wisdom? or if the only creative or knowledgable intelligences that exist are the human ones who owe what they discover or create?

I have the impression that the real answer remains in the intersection of these apparently opposite postures, there was revelation in the past, there is still revelation today, since the source of both is eternal, and what many people think they discover is just part of it and so not really their entire production.

Thanks for your attention,

The Angel of Lightness