Errors of Maria Valtorta Part 2
A Generalized Sexual Obsession
The first article pointed to some major doctrinal errors in The Poem of the Man-God by Maria Valtorta. Here we will look at two more problematic claims by the visionary whose work was condemned by the Church.
Original sin was the sexual act
Valtorta claims the original sin was the sexual act performed by our first parents (pp. 98, 254, 257, 258). (1) These are long “revelations” that Valtorta supposedly received on the topic, but here we will present only the basic elements of this heresy.
She claims that at first Adam and Eve did not know how to engender children by means of the sexual union. Instead, procreation was to take place by the special intervention of God, without sexual union. Knowledge of this union was forbidden to Adam and Eve, and this was the bait used by the Serpent to tempt Eve.
In Valtorta's new version of original sin, it was a sexual temptation
In summary, Valtorta says: “Eve approached the tree of good
and evil to come to know this mystery, these laws of life. ... She came
disposed to receive this mystery, not from the revelation of the pure
teaching and divine influence, but of the impure teaching and satanic
influence.”
At the tree Eve finds the Seducer, “who sings his song of lies to her inexperience, to her beautiful virginal inexperience, to her badly guarded inexperience. ‘You think there is evil here? No, there isn't. God told you because He wants to keep you as slaves under His power. You think you are king and queen? You are not even as free as wild animals. Animals can love one another with true love. You cannot. Animals are granted the gift of being creators like God. Animals generate little ones and see their families grow as much as they like. You do not. You are denied this joy. Why make you man and woman if you have to live thus? Be gods. You do not know the joy of being two in one flesh, which creates a third one and many more.
“‘Do not believe God when He promised you the joy of posterity seeing your children forming new families, leaving their father and mother for their families. He has given you a sham life: real life is to know the laws of life. Then, you will be like gods and will be able to say to God: We are equal to You.’”
Suffice it to add that the obscenities in some of Valtorta's descriptions of the Devil tempting Eve are sufficient to awaken doubts even in the most ignorant about the nature of her supposed “divine revelation” on Creation.
Church doctrine on original sin does not teach that it involved the sexual act. According to Catholic teaching, Adam and Eve were not unaware of the use of marriage, since, before his fall, Adam said, “a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2: 24).
According to the Council of Orange, it was disobedience that caused our first parents, created in full integrity, to lose sanctifying grace and other gifts. Among these consequences came disorder in the concupiscence; that is to say, before the fall they suffered no disordered desire for sensible pleasures, including the sexual. The original sin was an act of disobedience that had no direct link with sexuality, which is set out in many sound Catechisms or accessible works like the Teología del Dogma Católico [The Theology of Catholic Dogma] by Fr. J. Abarzuza (p. 644).
But Valtorta insists again and again on her new version of original sin with so many details that suggests she had a morbid inclination to deal with sexual matters.
Our Lord & Our Lady suffered sexual temptations
Valtorta also affirms that, throughout their lives, both Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin suffered terrible sexual temptations, which they had to overcome through hard struggle.
At the tree Eve finds the Seducer, “who sings his song of lies to her inexperience, to her beautiful virginal inexperience, to her badly guarded inexperience. ‘You think there is evil here? No, there isn't. God told you because He wants to keep you as slaves under His power. You think you are king and queen? You are not even as free as wild animals. Animals can love one another with true love. You cannot. Animals are granted the gift of being creators like God. Animals generate little ones and see their families grow as much as they like. You do not. You are denied this joy. Why make you man and woman if you have to live thus? Be gods. You do not know the joy of being two in one flesh, which creates a third one and many more.
“‘Do not believe God when He promised you the joy of posterity seeing your children forming new families, leaving their father and mother for their families. He has given you a sham life: real life is to know the laws of life. Then, you will be like gods and will be able to say to God: We are equal to You.’”
Suffice it to add that the obscenities in some of Valtorta's descriptions of the Devil tempting Eve are sufficient to awaken doubts even in the most ignorant about the nature of her supposed “divine revelation” on Creation.
Church doctrine on original sin does not teach that it involved the sexual act. According to Catholic teaching, Adam and Eve were not unaware of the use of marriage, since, before his fall, Adam said, “a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen 2: 24).
According to the Council of Orange, it was disobedience that caused our first parents, created in full integrity, to lose sanctifying grace and other gifts. Among these consequences came disorder in the concupiscence; that is to say, before the fall they suffered no disordered desire for sensible pleasures, including the sexual. The original sin was an act of disobedience that had no direct link with sexuality, which is set out in many sound Catechisms or accessible works like the Teología del Dogma Católico [The Theology of Catholic Dogma] by Fr. J. Abarzuza (p. 644).
But Valtorta insists again and again on her new version of original sin with so many details that suggests she had a morbid inclination to deal with sexual matters.
Our Lord & Our Lady suffered sexual temptations
Valtorta also affirms that, throughout their lives, both Our Lord Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin suffered terrible sexual temptations, which they had to overcome through hard struggle.
Our Lord and His Mother were free from the effects of original sin and suffered no disordered inclinations
In this statement, which she claims is from a revelation
made to her by Christ himself, we see Valtorta's total ignorance of
Catholic dogmatic teaching on elementary points.
Neither Jesus Christ, God made man, nor the Blessed Virgin could suffer sexual temptations because they lacked what the Church calls the fomes peccati or inclination toward evil that are the effects of original sin. Christ, as the Son of God, was as a man exempt from such an inclination, since He was without sin.
The Blessed Virgin, who was destined to be the Mother of God by the grace of her Immaculate Conception, was conceived without sin; therefore, she did not have consequences of original sin. Being spotless, she was incapable of sinning, according to Church doctrine.
Both God the Son and the Mother of God were, thus, without original sin and free from the inclinations toward evil that afflict the rest of the sons of Adam. Therefore, they were not and could not be tempted to do evil. So, it is impossible for them to have been tempted toward sexual sins, as Valtorta repeatedly insists, putting stories of these temptation in the mouth of Christ himself.
Let us briefly set out the teaching of the Holy Church on this matter in words from Fr. Abarzuza's magnificent compendium on Theology:
Neither Jesus Christ, God made man, nor the Blessed Virgin could suffer sexual temptations because they lacked what the Church calls the fomes peccati or inclination toward evil that are the effects of original sin. Christ, as the Son of God, was as a man exempt from such an inclination, since He was without sin.
The Blessed Virgin, who was destined to be the Mother of God by the grace of her Immaculate Conception, was conceived without sin; therefore, she did not have consequences of original sin. Being spotless, she was incapable of sinning, according to Church doctrine.
Both God the Son and the Mother of God were, thus, without original sin and free from the inclinations toward evil that afflict the rest of the sons of Adam. Therefore, they were not and could not be tempted to do evil. So, it is impossible for them to have been tempted toward sexual sins, as Valtorta repeatedly insists, putting stories of these temptation in the mouth of Christ himself.
Let us briefly set out the teaching of the Holy Church on this matter in words from Fr. Abarzuza's magnificent compendium on Theology:
- “Christ was free from all sin” (defined doctrine of the Holy Catholic Faith);
- “By virtue of the Hypostatic Union, the human will of Christ was always and everywhere subject to the divine will. … Christ could not sin, nor was there in Him any capacity to sin. He was absolutely flawless” (Theology of Catholic Dogma, J. Abarzuza, pp. 737-38).
In her ignoble stories of the alleged sexual temptations that Valtorta claims were reported to her by Christ himself, there are many details that offend the Divine Person of the Savior and His Blessed Mother. The Poem of the Man-God makes us think of Jesus Christ Superstar and other profane works created to mock the divinity of Our Lord.
