Alfredo Ottaviani - Impacts and Influences - Index of Forbidden Books - Maria Valtorta

Maria Valtorta

Ottaviani was also critical of the writings of the bed-ridden Italian mystic Maria Valtorta who, like Faustina Kowalska, reported visions of Jesus and Mary.

When the typed version of the 15,000 handwritten pages of Maria Valtorta's notebooks was prepared by Father Romualdo Migliorini and Father Corrado Berti (both Servite priests), they sought Vatican guidance for procedural advice on presenting the alleged revelations to the proper ecclesiastical hierarchy, as the local bishop’s (Fontevecchia) vision was fading. At the Vatican they encountered Monsignor Alphonso Carinci and Cardinal Augustin Bea, Pope Pius XII's confessor, who advised presenting the typed manuscript directly to Pope Pius XII, through a recommended intermediary, which was accomplished in 1947. Ten months later, Monsignor Alphonso Carinci and Cardinal Augustin Bea facilitated a meeting between the Servite priests and Pope Pius XII, and it was recorded in L'Osservatore Romano .

Valtorta's notebooks were to be published as a book called the Poem of the Man God. Cardinal Bea was impressed with the book and later wrote that he found the Poem of the Man God "not only interesting and pleasing, but truly edifying".

During the papal audience, Pope Pius XII reportedly said: "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." Father Berti signed an affidavit to this effect, stating that he had a verbal papal approval. However, once he approached the Vatican Press, he was summoned to the Holy Office, was seriously rebuked, and the Holy Office attempted to confiscate the original copies of Valtorta's writings.

While Pope Pius XII was alive, Cardinal Ottaviani (who was then Pro-Prefect at the Holy Office) took no action against the Poem of the Man God or Maria Valtorta, but ordered Father Berti to silence. A year after the death of Pius XII, Ottaviani placed the work among the list of books he presented to the newly appointed Pope John XXIII, who signed the decree banning all the books on the list.

Interestingly, years later, Cardinals Bea and Ottaviani were to disagree once again, at the Second Vatican Council, on more wide ranging issues.