Holy See: Maria Valtorta’s works “literary,” not supernatural

The Catholic Church does not recognize as supernatural the “visions,” “revelations,” and “messages” of the mystic Maria Valtorta (1897-1961). The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a brief communiqué to this effect, published on its website on February 22, 2025. 

This Italian woman’s writings are still enjoying a certain degree of popularity, even though they were placed on the Index in 1959 and have been criticized by the Holy See on several occasions since then.

The dicastery explains that it wanted to publish this note after having been frequently asked about the Church's position on Maria Valtorta's writings. In particular, it cites her book The Gospel as Revealed to Me, a work in 10 volumes in which the Italian recounts the story of the life of Christ in her own way, also known as the Poem of the Man-God.

“The alleged 'visions,' 'revelations,' and ‘messages’ contained in the writings of Maria Valtorta — or, in any case, attributed to them — cannot be considered to be of supernatural origin,” states the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. They “should be considered simply as literary forms that the author used to narrate the life of Jesus Christ in her own way,” it explains.

The dicastery reiterates that the Church does not accept the “Apocryphal Gospels and other similar texts” as “normative,” because it “does not recognize them as divinely inspired.” The Church refers only to the canon of the “inspired Gospels,” i.e. those written by the evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Between 1943 and 1951, Maria Valtorta, a great reader of mystical writings who had gone through many trials in her life, wrote a “gospel,” which she claimed was “dictated by the Holy Spirit.” Later, she also claimed to have received comments on liturgical texts from her guardian angel. Her widely circulated writings then drew a response from the Holy See.

In 1959, Valtorta's “Gospel” was placed on the Index by the “Holy Office,” the predecessor of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The Vatican criticized it mainly for its “irreverence” towards the biblical account. It described the work as “a badly fictionalized life of Jesus” in L'Osservatore Romano on January 6, 1960.

Rome also denounced the narrative because “Jesus is extremely talkative, almost boastful, always ready to proclaim himself Messiah and Son of God and to give lessons in theology in the same terms that a professor of today would use.” Similarly, Mary “has the facetiousness of a modern propagandist” and gives “lessons in Marian theology.” The Holy See also warned against a form of “new Mariology” present in the text.

Despite the ban, publication of her writings continued in the following years, taking advantage of the suppression of the Index by the Second Vatican Council in 1966. However, the Holy See continued to warn against the writings of Maria Valtorta.

Thus Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, recalled in a letter published in 1984 that condemnation by the Index retained its moral value and warned against the “damage” caused by Valtorta’s text. In 1988, he denounced in another letter “a set of childish fantasies, of historical and exegetical errors, all presented in a subtly sensual context.”