by Marco Corvaglia
It was 1982. At that time Marija [Pavlović] was ending, in Mostar, her training as a hairdresser. To allow her to have her apparitions in good conditions, a Franciscan, Father Franjo, had made a small room available to her where she went to pray after the courses. Father Franjo often received questions about the book by Maria Valtorta [...]. Then he asked Marija to ask Our Lady if this book was true.
[René Laurentin, Dernières Nouvelles de Medjugorje, No 15, F.X. de Guibert, Paris, 1996, p. 19]
The book at issue is the Life that the Madonna allegedly dictated to Maria Valtorta.
The fact above was reported as happening in 1982, as we have seen. Shortly after, also the visionaries of Medjugorje have claimed that the Madonna dictated her life to them.
Actually, in the parish document called Chronicle of the Apparitions, updated by the assistant pastor Tomislav Vlašić, we read on 7 January 1983:
The Madonna this evening has begun to narrate her life. She tells them and they follow her in her growth. She said she will tell them, in episodes, her life. She has forbidden them to tell it to others until she has said everything. She has assigned to each of them the task to write her biography.
[Kronika ukazanja (Chronicle of the Apparitions), vol. I, 07/01/1983, p. 353. Original text: Gospa večeras počela pričati svoj život. Priča im i gledaju je u njenom razvoju. Rekla im je da će im u nastavcima ispričati svoj život. O tome im je zabranila drugima pričati dok im sve ne rekne. Naglasila je svakomu od njih da piše njezin životopis.]
On March 25, 1985, Bishop Žanić decreed, in vain, in a letter to the friars of the Medjugorje parish:
The visionaries must give everything they have written, especially the so-called Life of the Madonna.
[R. Laurentin, Dernières Nouvelles de Medjugorje, No 4, O.E.I.L., Paris, 1985, p. 28]
Vicka claimed to have received the account for 850 days (the other visionaries have different, but shorter, periods) until April 10, 1985 [cf. also R. Laurentin, Racconto e messaggio delle apparizioni di Medjugorje, Queriniana, Brescia, 1987, p. 153].
On 19 April 1985 the assistant pastor Slavko Barbarić communicated:
About Vicka, Our Lady ended by telling her the story of her life in Nazareth on the 10th April, it was Wednesday. On Thursday she told Vicka the date when it can be published and on Friday the name of the priest to whom Vicka must hand everything over. Vicka did not tell me anything else.
[Tomislav Vlašić, Slavko Barbarić, Abbandonatevi totalmente a me, Amici di Medjugorje, Milan, 1985, p. 114]
In the following video Vicka, interviewed on Rai Uno in 1988, during the programme Uno Mattina, confirms having put in writing the Life the Virgin dictated to her and says she is waiting for the Madonna to tell her to publish it.
After so many years, nobody has ever seen these manuscripts and the publication has not yet occurred.
Marco Corvaglia
Published on 27 July 2010
