La Reporta
Valtorta: Distorta, Contorta, E Non-Importa
Maria Valtorta's Poem
of the Man-God books are not all they're cracked up to be.
Q: Can you please comment on The Poem of the Man-God? Some of my friends think it is wonderful, a very important spiritual work, surpassed only by the Bible itself. Our pastor won’t allow it to be placed in our church library. I recall several years ago reading a series of articles that, I believe, held that the book is heretical, but I can’t recall the source. I would like to know how the Church feels about its acceptability as a devotional tool.
A: After Joshua and A Course in Miracles comes The Poem of the
Man-God. Maybe we need a regular section entitled “Books for Pulping,” or something of the kind. They are the kind of books that merit the wag’s version of the book review cliché: “This is not a book to be set aside lightly. It should be thrown with great vigor.” Far from being an important book, it should be avoided.
The Poem of the Man-God is a work in several volumes that was written by an Italian woman, Maria Valtorta, who died in 1961. As a self-proclaimed “mystic,” Signora Valtorta claimed that her writings — the volumes comprising The
Poem of the Man-God — which allegedly fill in the gaps in the life of Christ left by the Gospel narratives — were inspired, dictated to her by Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Contrary to the lady’s claims for her writings, in the judgment of the Church there is nothing inspired about them and, to be frank, I wouldn’t think most people who read a few pages of the
Poem would need the judgment of the Church to determine that for themselves.
This work is dismissed as “a badly fictionalized life of Christ,” written in painfully poor prose, “childish,” full of “fantasies, and of historical and exegetical falsehoods, diluted in a subtly sensual atmosphere.” I am sorry to be so brutal about it, but that description is not mine. All those quotes come from the
L’Osservatore Romano — the official newspaper of the Holy See (you might say, the Pope’s newspaper) — in an opinion piece it ran on
The Poem of the Man-God several decades ago. Despite its name, the Poem is not poetic, unless one means by that something imaginative — which it is to a degree that
L’Osservatore bluntly characterized as “belonging in the category of mental illness.”
Other orthodox theologians have pointed out failings ranging from theological errors to absolute tastelessness. It is filled with odd theological contortions, distortions of Gospel accounts, and outright errors. An example of such problems appears in Volume 2, in which the Blessed Virgin Mary as a young girl is telling her mother that she wishes she could be “a big sinner” so that God could forgive her even more.
Some promoters of Maria Valtorta’s works will claim that Pope Pius XII, in a private audience in 1948, praised the work and encouraged its publication. There is no way to verify this. What we can verify, though, is that pope’s official opinion of the work as it was declared publicly through the Holy Office, the Vatican department responsible directly to the pope himself for analyzing and commenting on theological works. The
Poem was presented to the Holy Office in 1949 for approval. The response was not what the proponents of the work had hoped for. The two priests from the Holy Office who were given the task of studying the volumes and issuing a verdict condemned Valtorta’s writings and went so far as to secure an agreement that they would not be published.
However, those involved did publish it in 1956. The response was swift and predictable. In a decision signed by Pope John XXIII — a holy man of great personal piety, and, just coincidentally, the Vicar of Christ — the Holy Office placed it on the Index of Forbidden Books.
The Index has long since been abolished, but contrary to what the book’s supporters say, it “retains its moral force despite its dissolution.” In other words, the work was judged gravely deficient after serious examination by highly competent and faithful theologians, and it didn’t become a pious marvel just because the Church stopped publishing a list (the Index). Asked about it again in 1993, Cardinal Ratzinger reaffirmed this judgment.
But isn’t it possible there’s some good in it? Well, it would be practically impossible for there not to be some good in it. Nothing on this earth is totally bad.
If I were starving and had nothing else at hand, I would no doubt take my chances with a piece of meat that had a distinct whiff of being well past its sell-by date. But I would be just plain foolish to do so if there were an abundance of fine, fresh, tender cuts on hand just waiting to be slapped on the grill. There are excellent “Life of Christ” volumes available that have none of the drawbacks of the Poem and provide great spiritual nourishment.
Try Fulton Sheen’s Life of
Christ, for example; Alban Goodier’s The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ and
The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ; L.C. Fillion’s
The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ; or Henri Daniel-Rops’
Jesus in His Time. Different styles, but all solid, none toxic. None are very recent works; it seems the epoch of the great “lives of Christ” books spanned the first half of the twentieth century. But even if not currently in print, they can be obtained (in person or by mail) from second-hand booksellers such as Loome Theological Books in Stillwater, Minnesota
(www.booktown.com/loome/loome.htm
on the Internet).
No official Church judgment has been expressed about Maria Valtorta. She was apparently very pious. We can assume she had the best of intentions. It may be that she was personally a very good person. Unfortunately, though, her books are not good. Your pastor gets my vote.
Q: A fundamental Catholic belief is that “we believe in the resurrection of the body.” My reason has a hard time accepting that a human body, after it is buried and decayed, can be resurrected. So a literal understanding, that the whole man with his physical body is resurrected, is not logically possible. However, doesn’t a more spiritualized view — that a body not subject to earthly laws is resurrected — water down the belief? Isn’t it making the world conform to our belief system?
A: The Church, quoting St. Paul, teaches that in Christ “all of them will rise with their own bodies which they now bear” (CCC 999). However, keep in mind that our body does not depend on some immutable physical identity to be “ours.” In fact, over the course of a lifetime every molecule in the body is replaced several times over. You have none of those you had as a child.
 What makes my body mine is the “glue” or “form” that holds it together, so to speak. We call that form the soul. The matter that your soul “informs” — that is, holds together and gives form and unity to at any particular moment — is your body.
We will rise “with our own bodies,” but “Christ . . . will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Phil. 3:20-21), into “a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44). The reason — the only reason — we will rise again is that our Head, who is Christ, has already risen. Therefore our resurrection will be in the mold of Christ’s.
We are talking here about the Christian reality of resurrection, not mere “resuscitation.” That is, it’s not a matter of human bodies being simply restored to the condition they were in before they died. Rather, they will be gloriously transformed. What exactly the Scripture means when it says they will be raised a “spiritual body,” we don’t know for sure, but it certainly does not mean some kind of disembodied ghost, nor a mere memory or “spiritual influence” left behind in the lives of others.
Christ truly rose from the dead. And after His resurrection His body consumed food, displayed the scars of His crucifixion, and could be touched by St. Thomas. But this glorified body was no longer subject to the ordinary laws that govern material things. Christ was at once both here and there (Emmaus and Jerusalem). He was here one moment, gone an instant later. “Christ was raised with his own body, but he did not return to an earthly life”
(CCC 999).
Finally, I don’t think this notion “waters down our belief.” A “spiritual body” is not somehow “less” than our natural human body. It is our natural human body and much more. As for “making the world conform to our belief system,” if you must put it that way, well, yes, I suppose we are! The fact is, our “belief system” happens to express — within the limitations of human language — the Maker’s view of the world. Call me naïve, if you like, but I’m inclined to think that, in spite of the fact that God has still not been awarded a Nobel Prize (after several millennia), He’s probably got it right.
Q: My son became fascinated with apologetics after returning to the Church and developed a firm belief in the Church’s unchanging truth. However, he recently heard a Catholic priest on the radio give a fuzzy and inconclusive answer to the question, “So, Father, whatever happened to limbo?” My son is deeply troubled and now questions the unchangeability of the Church’s teachings.
Limbo is not mentioned at all in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church. Yet it is addressed by Fathers Rumble and Carty — pre-Vatican II — in all three volumes of Radio Replies as a resting place for unbaptized infants. They say: “The Catholic doctrine is based on the Gospel of Christ, and would never have been dreamed of but for that Gospel.” Who dropped limbo, and why? Not wanting to trouble the hearts of those whose children have died without baptism is not a good enough answer. Can you give a me “non-fuzzy” answer?
A: Well, I hope so. I don’t think anything fuzzy gets by our editor. If it doesn’t pass muster you can be quite sure he will submit it to a rigorous de-fuzzing before publication. For clarity’s sake, let me treat your question as five questions:
First, what is Catholic teaching in this area?
Second, is this unchangeable?
Third, was the existence of limbo Catholic teaching?
Fourth, did the Church drop or change this teaching, and if so, why did it?
Fifth, what does the Church teach now about the destiny of unbaptized infants?
1. “Catholic teaching” is generally understood as referring to those truths of faith the Church as a whole, especially through the Pope and the Bishops, constantly and confidently teaches. It includes not only truths that have been taught in such a way (infallibly) as to be irreformable, but also elements that, though not proposed infallibly, are taught by the “authentic” teaching authority Christ left his Church. It would not, for example, include all the possible ways of explaining the Faith that a catechist might come up with, or competing theological theories, or new developments in theology, which may well some day become “Catholic teaching” but for the moment wouldn’t merit that appellative.
2. Teachings that, either because they have been explicitly proposed by an extraordinary act of the Magisterium (the teaching authority of the Church), or because they have been clearly and constantly taught by the “ordinary” magisterium, are irreformable; that is, they cannot be contradicted. They can be clarified, added to, and expressed more clearly or in more modern language, as long as the previous teaching is not jettisoned.
Other teachings of the Church are not irreformable, even though it is highly unlikely that any particular one of them will ever be contradicted.
An example of such teaching today might be, say, the Church’s teaching in Donum Vitae regarding in vitro fertilization. The Church has taught very clearly and explicitly that it is contrary to human dignity, but because this is a new question it is not a teaching that has been constantly proposed by the ordinary Magisterium, nor has it been proclaimed in dogmatic form by the extraordinary Magisterium of the Church. So while it must receive “religious assent of mind and will” from Catholics, it’s not impossible that the Church could at some future time revise its judgment on the matter.
3. I’m not sure the existence of limbo was ever more than an acceptable theological hypothesis. It was for many centuries the accepted hypothesis, but not confirmed Catholic teaching. It was the best answer theologians could come up with to a question divine Revelation does not clearly answer, as far as we can see: What happens to babies who, without being guilty of personal sin, die before baptism? The authors of
Radio Replies are correct when they say the Church would never have come up with it were it not for the Gospel. What theologians in past centuries were attempting to do was to fill in the gaps in the Gospel accounts. However, that doesn’t guarantee that they got it right.
The case can be made that limbo was part of the Church’s ordinary and authentic teaching. It was included in various official Catechisms, including the
Baltimore Catechism. Pope Pius VI in 1794 condemned Jansenists for labeling proponents of limbo heretics.
On the other hand, Pius VI’s purpose was, in essence, to stop name calling, not to give limbo a papal endorsement. Moreover, even had he intended to affirm the existence of limbo, his statement would have been “subject to later review.” One swallow does not make a summer, and one statement by a Pope — unless he were clearly to indicate his intent to make a definitive judgment — does not make a changeless Church teaching. “No doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined,” says Canon Law (C.749, §3), “unless this is manifestly demonstrated.”
In fact, it was commonly accepted for several centuries that limbo was a subject open to discussion by theologians. A well-known pre-Vatican II catechetical source, Kilgallon and Weber’s
Christ in Us, terms it just “the usual explanation of theologians.” In sum, even if the existence of limbo was once taught by some teachers of the Church, it was most certainly not irreformable or “unchangeable” teaching.
4. This in itself does not explain why limbo rarely if ever gets a mention any more. So why, then, the silence? It seems clear that the Church has concluded that, first of all, there is not a truly solid foundation for it in divine Revelation. Second, the limbo hypothesis attempts to “save” the certain doctrine of the necessity of baptism for salvation, but it fails to pay equivalent respect, as it were, to the equally sure doctrine that it is God’s will that all be saved. A good hypothesis in any science, theology included, offers an explanation for all the data.
Its present status, then, is that of a theological hypothesis, but an unsatisfactory one. There is no mention of it in the
Catechism because the Catechism is a compendium of formal Catholic teaching. Undefined doctrinal propositions and theological theories, however important and ancient they may be, are, like batteries, not included in the general focus of the Catechism.
5. The Church’s present teaching affirms both the universal salvific will of God and the necessity of baptism. It is summed up quite beautifully as follows: “As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: ‘Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,’ allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church’s call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism” (CCC 1261).
In conclusion: Perhaps I’m being a bit rhetorical — exaggerating to make a point — but I sometimes think it is lamentable that it was necessary at Vatican I to define papal infallibility. Though it was no doubt an unintended consequence, now everything that hasn’t been proclaimed “infallibly” is looked upon by some people as if it were doubtful, on shaky ground, up for discussion and just another opinion no better than yours or mine.
Of course, I suppose you can’t really blame Vatican I for what is just frightfully bad logic, not to mention legalistic minimalism. “Not infallible” is not the equivalent of “unsure.” On the level of everyday discourse and practice, all authentic Church teaching can be termed “certain.” It is far more reliable, for example, than theories of “global warming” or even the most established and generally accepted of scientific “facts.” Nevertheless, a lot of people who will readily dismiss a whole raft of Catholic teaching because “it’s not infallible” will pay unquestioning obeisance to theories of science that are by no means uncontested in the hallowed halls of the academy.
Church teaching commands our allegiance not because it is infallible but because it is authentic, that is, it is taught by those to whom — alone — the assistance of the Holy Spirit has been promised: the successors of the apostles. Yes, we are all the Church (or if you must, “We are all Church”), and we all enjoy gifts and a variety of “assistance” from the Holy Spirit. But that does not mean that “the sure charism of truth” was bestowed on all of us. The elbow is certainly part of the body; but that doesn’t entitle it to claim it can see or hear.
What “being the Church” should mean for all of us is a cordial embrace of all the Church is, thinks, and lives. It is petty, legal nit-picking of the “getting off on a technicality” variety to assert “non-infallibility” as justifiable grounds for setting one’s own judgment above the judgment of those to whom the assistance of the Holy Spirit is guaranteed. Paragraph 892 of the
Catechism should be force-fed to all offending parties until they “get it.”
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Have a question
you'd like answered? Send it to Fr. Brian Wilson, L.C., " I
Have a Question," 1453 E. California Blvd., Pasadena, CA
91106; or email it to frwilson@familink.com. |
|
The
priests given the task of studying The Poem of the
Man-God and issuing a verdict condemned Valtorta's
writings and secured an agreement that they would not be
published. However, those involved did publish it. The
response was swift. In a decision signed by Pope John
XXIII the Holy Office placed it on the Index of
Forbidden Books. |
|
My
reason has a hard time accepting that a human body, after
it is buried and decayed, can be resurrected. So a literal
understanding, that the whole man with his physical body
is resurrected, is not logically possible. However,
doesn't a more spiritualized view -- that a body not
subject to earthly laws is resurrected -- water down the
belief? Isn't it making the world conform to our belief
system? |
|
The
existence of limbo was for many centuries the accepted
hypothesis, but not confirmed Catholic teaching. It was
the best answer theologians could come up with to a
question divine Revelation does not clearly answer, as far
as we can see: What happens to babies who, without being
guilty of personal sin, die before baptism? |
|
Church
teaching commands our allegiance not because it is
infallible but because it is authentic, that is, it is
taught by those to whom -- alone -- the assistance of the
Holy Spirit has been promised: the successors of the
apostles. |
|
