 | |
| Author | Maria Valtorta |
|---|---|
| Original title | Il Poema dell'Uomo-Dio |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
Publication date |
1956 |
The Poem of the Man-God (Italian title: Il Poema dell'Uomo-Dio), also titled The Gospel as Revealed to me, is a work on the life of Jesus Christ written by Maria Valtorta. The current editions of the work bear the title The Gospel as Revealed to Me.
The work was first published in Italian in 1956. It is based on the over 15,000 handwritten pages produced by Maria Valtorta between 1943 and 1947. During these years she reported visions of Jesus and Mary personal conversations with and dictations from Jesus.
Valtorta's handwritten episodes were typed into separate pages by her priest and reassembled in chronological order. In 1960, the Holy Office placed the work on the Index of Forbidden Books.
Writing and publication
Maria Valtorta was at first reluctant to have her notebooks published but, on the advice of her priest, in 1947 she agreed to their publication.
Berti claims that at a meeting, Pius XII told him and two other priests: "Publish this work as it is. There is no need to give an opinion about its origin, whether it be extraordinary or not. Who reads it, will understand. One hears of many visions and revelations. I will not say they are all authentic; but there are some of which it could be said that they are".
A year later, in 1949, confident of papal approval, Fr. Berti presented the cork for publication to the Vatican Printing Office. However," two commissioners of the Holy Office, Msgr. Giovanni Pepe and Father Berruti, O.P., condemned the 'Poem,' ordering Berti to hand over every copy and sign an agreement not to publish it. Fr. Berti returned the manuscripts to Valtorta and handed over only his typed versions".
Bishop Danylak later says that Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, writing on October 31, 1987, to the Maria Valtorta Research Center, spoke of "the kind of official Imprimatur granted before witnesses by the Holy Father in 1948", while writer David Michael Lindsey reports Cardinal Gagnon as saying: "This judgment by the Holy Father in 1948 was an official Imprimatur of the type given before witnesses".
Index of Forbidden Books
Father Berti claims that at the meeting, Pius XII him and two other priests: "Publish this work as it is. There is no need to give an opinion about its origin, whether it be extraordinary or not. Who reads it, will understand. One hears of many visions and revelations. I will not say they are all authentic; but there are some of which it could be said that they are."
A year later, in 1949, confident of papal approval, Fr. Berti presented the work for publication to the Vatican Printing Office. However, "two commissioners of the Holy Office, Msgr. Giovanni Pepe and Father Berruti, O.P., condemned the 'Poem,' ordering Berti to hand over every copy and sign an agreement not to publish it. Fr. Berti returned the manuscripts to Valtorta and handed over only his typed versions".
Bishop Danylak later claimed that Cardinal Edouard Gagnon, writing on 31 October 1987 to the Maria Valtorta Research Center, spoke of "the kind of official Imprimatur granted before witnesses by the Holy Father in 1948". Danylak also claims that writer David Michael Lindsey reported Cardinal Gagnon as saying: "This judgment by the Holy Father in 1948 was an official Imprimatur of the type given before witnesses."
Holy See's reaction to publication
On 16 December 1959, the Congregation of the Holy Office ordered the 4-volume work entitled "The Poem of the Man-God" placed on the Index of Forbidden Books. Pope John XXIII approved the decree and directed that the condemnation be published. The decree was then promulgated by the Holy Office on 5 January 1960. The decree was published also in L'Osservatore Romano of 6 January 1960, accompanied by a front-page article under the heading "A Badly Fictionalized Life of Jesus".
By a decree of January 5, 1960, the Holy Office condemned the published work and included it in the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The decree was published also on L'Osservatore Romano of January 6, 1960, accompanied by a front-page, unsigned article under the heading "A Badly Fictionalized Life of Jesus".
The Vatican newspaper republished the content of the decree on 1 December 1961, together with an explanatory note, as mentioned in 1985 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
In a 31 January 1985 letter, Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, entrusted to Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, Archbishop of Genoa, the decision whether to inform a priest of his archdiocese that the work of Valtorta had been placed on the Index and that the Index which keeps its moral force. Ratzinger adds that "a decision against distributing and recommending a work, which has not been condemned lightly, may be reversed, but only after profound changes that neutralize the harm which such a publication could bring forth among the ordinary faithful".
In 1993 Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to Bishop Raymond James Boland of Birmingham, Alabama, that his Congregation had made that request to the Italian Bishops Conference to ask the publisher to have a disclaimer printed in the volumes that "clearly indicated from the very first page that the 'visions' and 'dictations' referred to in it are simply the literary forms used by the author to narrate in her own way the life of Jesus. They cannot be considered supernatural in origin".
Support
Astronomical analysis
The narrative of The Poem of the Man-God includes a number of observations of the positions of the heavenly bodies. For instance, in episode 357, written on December 11, 1945, Valtorta wrote of a night Jesus spent at Gadara: "the sky is glistening with countless stars... with its springtime constellations and the magnificent stars of Orion: of Rigil and Betelgeuse, of Aldebaran, of Perseus, Andromeda and Cassiopeia and the Pleiades united like sisters. And Sapphirine Venus covered with diamonds, and Mars of pale ruby and the topaz of Jupiter".
In 1994 Purdue University physicist Lonnie VanZandt analyzed the joint observation of the stars and the galaxies mentioned to derive two possible dates for the event described. Using a Planetarium software system, VanZandt established that the only possibilities for the observation Valtorta described on a Sunday night in the month of March would be AD31 or AD33. After considering other elements in the narrative concluded that March AD33 was the only possibility. He then computed the date of the crucifixion of Jesus as April 21st, AD34 using additional information about sky observations in the text. According to VanZandt the estimation of the joint observability of these three stars and the position of the moon during that time would have been almost impossible without a computer system. The year AD34 was one of two possiblities for the crucifixion year computed by Isaac Newton in 1733 (and noted by John Fotheringham in 1910) by using the different approach of calculating the visibility of the crescent of the moon.
Scriptural and theological
Catholic priest Roschini wrote that Valtorta is "one of the greatest contemporary mystics", and that her writings "constitute the most melodious hymn rising from earth to the noble Queen of Heaven".
Criticism
According to Father Mitch Pacwa SJ, "the long speeches of Jesus and Mary starkly contrast with the evangelists, who portray Jesus as humble, reserved; His discourses are lean, incisive". In addition, Pacwa writes that the poem has "many historical, geographical and other blunders. For instance, Jesus uses screwdrivers (vol. I, pp. 195, 223), centuries before screws existed". Screwdrivers are mentioned by Valtorta twice in her work.
In 2023 Joachim Bouflet made various criticisms of The Poem of the Man-God's consistency. For example he addressed the claim of Valtorta that the Second Temple has domes, something that in Bouflet's opinion archeological excavations have proven to be false. Bouflet states that Valtorta also talks about the existence of Tiberias in her vision, at a time in her vision (when Jesus Christ was 5 years old, in Egypt) when it was not founded yet. Furthermore, the descriptions of the ficus carica of Palestine she provides only matches the descriptions of the ones that grow in the American continent. Bouflet states that the use of the word "vanilla" by Aglae (a first-century former prostitute), in section 168 of the book, is linguistically anachronistic since the term was only coined in the 16th century. However, Bouflet does acknowledge that vanilla existed in first-century Judea.
See also
Further reading
- Maunder, Chris, Our Lady of the Nations: Apparitions of Mary in 20th-Century Catholic Europe, Oxford University Press, 2016 ISBN 9780198718383