The Stages of Approval of
Maria Valtorta's Work

FEBRUARY 26,1948 - Pope Pius XII received three religious from the Order of the Servants of Mary in a private audience. They had sent him some typewritten collections of texts from Maria Valtorta's still-unpublished major work. The Pope recommended publishing the work "just as it is," expressing his disapproval of a proposed foreword which sought to elucidate its nature and adding, "Whoever reads it will understand." Filled with enthusiasm, the three religious considered setting up a publishing house, proposed that the work be put out by the Vatican Printing Office, and sought official approval. But in 1949 the Holy Office restrained them with a severe prohibition. The work was accepted by a lay publisher; Michele Pisani, who signed a contract with the writer Maria Valtorta in 1952 and published the work in four large tomes coming out between 1956 and 1959. The name of the writer, who wished to remain unknown during her lifetime, was omitted. Pius XII died in October 1958 and was succeeded by John XXIII.

DECEMBER 16,1959. A Holy Office decree condemned the four anonymous volumes of the work entitled The Poem of the God-Man and placed them on the INDEX of prohibited books. L'Osservatore Romano published the news on January 6, 1960, along with an article explaining the reasons for the condemnation (namely, verbosity and prolixity (which we think are open to divergences in opinion and should not, in any case, be subjected to ecclesiastical censure), the inappropriateness of "certain pages" which are overly explicit (whose purpose, from an objective standpoint, is to condemn sin and evil, not take delight in them), presumed historical, geographical, and other similar errors (without citing a single example), some doctrinal inaccuracies (which do not constitute heresies and are clarified in the context of the work), and, finally, the "serious act of disobedience" regarding the prohibition ten years earlier (which clearly concerned the religious who were deemed responsible for the publication).

DECEMBER 7, 1965. Pope Paul VI, who had succeeded John XXIII in 1963, suppressed the Index of prohibited books. A Vatican notification dated June 14,1966 specified that the aforementioned INDEX retained its moral value, though no longer in effect as an ecclesiastical law.

JANUARY 31 1985. A letter from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly the Holy Office) to Cardinal Ginseppe Siri, Archbishop of Genoa, specified that the condemnation of 1959 was decided upon "in order to neutralize the harm this publication may cause to the least prepared of the faithful." It may be deduced from Cardinal Ratzinger's letter that reading the work was not barred for all Catholics, but only for those of the "faithful" who in 1959 could be regarded as "the least prepared."

MAY 6,1992. Archbishop Dionigi Tettamanzi, in his capacity as Secretary General of the Italian Bishops' Conference, wrote to the publisher Emilio Pisani to request that 'in the event the volumes are reprinted, it be clearly stated at the outset that the 'visions' and 'dictations' related therein may not be considered to possess a supernatural origin, but must simply be deemed literary forms of which the author has made use to narrate the life of Jesus in her own way." It may be deduced from Archbishop Tettamanzi's letter that the work does not contain errors, is not censurable, and may thus be reprinted just as it is, and that reading it is not harmful even for the least prepared of the faithful. Catholic readers may not, however, affirm it to be of supernatural origin.

JUNE 30,1992. The publisher Emilio Pisani, on his first visit to the offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, learned that Archbishop Tettamanzi's letter had been requested by the Congregation as a result of the decision to allow all Catholics to read Maria Valtorta's work on the same terms as any other worthwhile publications.