Malachi Martin

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Malachi Brendan Martin (July 23, 1921–July 27, 1999) was a Roman Catholic priest and a former Jesuit. Author of sixty books on religious and geo-political topics, he was a controversial commentator for the Vatican and other Catholic matters.

He was a brother of the Irish historian F. X. Martin.

[edit] Early life and education

Martin was born in Ballylongford, County Kerry, Ireland. He received his secondary education at Belvedere College in Dublin, and became a Jesuit novice in 1939. In this capacity, he studied at the National University of Ireland. He received a bachelor's degree in Semitic languages and Oriental history and followed parallel studies in Assyriology at Trinity College Dublin.

He held a doctoral degree from the University of Louvain, Belgium. Father Martin also studied at Oxford and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem specializing in intertestamentary studies and knowledge of Jesus as transmitted in Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts.

[edit] Work and ordination

Additional subjects of intense study for him during his formal education included rational psychology, experimental psychology, physics and anthropology. He did early and seminal work on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and published some two dozen articles on Semitic paleography in learned journals.

He was ordained to the priesthood on August 15, 1954. From 1958 to 1964 he served the Holy See in Rome. Martin was the private secretary of Augustin Cardinal Bea S.J. in Rome and lived and worked at the Vatican for many years. While in Rome he was also professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute of the Vatican, where he taught Hebrew, Aramaic, paleography and scripture.

According to his book Hostage to the Devil, he assisted in several exorcisms while a priest. Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Travelled, developed a friendship with Martin and was influenced by the latter in the development of his theories of evil and exorcism.

[edit] Leaving the order

In 1965, Pope Paul VI gave Martin a dispensation from all privileges and obligations deriving from his vows as a Jesuit and from priestly ordination.^[1] Martin himself claimed the dispensation did not apply to his priestly vow of celibacy.^{[citation needed]} Father Charles Fiore, F.S.S.P. confirmed this shortly after Martin's death, stating in a letter to the New York Times that Cardinal Cooke allowed Martin the full faculties of the priesthood, though not functioning as a parish priest. For this reason, he did not wear the Roman collar. This was corroborated by Father Vincent O’Keefe S.J., former Vicar General of his order and a past President of Fordham University.^[2]

The leaving of the order and the priesthood has been explained by Martin's growing dissatisfaction with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, but others argue that his traditionalist bent only came later and that he sought the release to pursue a literary career.

[edit] Communications and media

After a brief stay in Paris, Martin relocated to New York City in 1965, and was active in the communications and media field for the rest of his life. He received a Guggenheim fellowship, which enabled him to write his first bestseller, Hostage to the Devil.

Martin was also a member of the Vatican advisory council and was privileged to secretive information pertaining to Vatican and other world issues,^[3] e.g. the Third Secret of Fatima.

Martin worked closely with the paranormal researchers Dave Considine and John Zaffis on several of their independent cases.

He was an outspoken opponent of the alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Bayside in the United States and Medjugorje in former Yugoslavia. ^[4]

Martin continued to offer Mass privately and vigorously exercised his priestly ministry all the way up until his death. He suffered a stroke shortly before dying.

In a series of interviews with author Bernard Janzen, Martin repeatedly affirmed his allegiance to the Pope. Although he reserved personal opinions and traditionalist views, he always said no one had a right to pass judgment on the Pontiff. This has been affirmed in his non-fiction, such as Keys of this Blood and The Jesuits.

[edit] Writings

Martin produced numerous best-selling fictional and non-fictional literary works, which became widely read throughout the world.

His later fictional works, like The Final Conclave, Vatican: A Novel and Windswept House were novels with fictional characters. However, most of these characters were based upon real persons, and the story lines of his books closely relate to historical events he personally witnessed during his stay in Rome.^{[citation needed]} He publicized detailed insider accounts of papal and church history during the reigns of Pius XII, Pope John XXIII, Paul VI, John-Paul I and John-Paul II.

His non-fictional writings cover a range of Catholic topics, such as demonic exorcisms, satanism, liberation theology, the Tridentine liturgy, Catholic dogma, modernism and the geopolitical importance of the Pope. He originated the concept of georeligion.^{[citation needed]}

His books, both fictional and non-fictional, frequently present a dark view of the present state of the world, invoking dark spirits, conspiracy, betrayal, heresy, widespread sexual perversion, self-advancement, and demonic possession, each being asserted as rife throughout the Catholic Church, from its lowest levels up to its highest.

Martin was a guest on Art Bell's radio program throughout the 1990s.

[edit] Controversy

Malachi Martin was criticized most notably in the book Clerical Error: A True Story by Robert Blair Kaiser, Time Magazine´s former Vatican correspondent. Kaiser accuses Martin of carrying on an extramarital affair with his wife and of being a notorious womanizer during his time in Rome, and claims that Martin fled to the United States as a renegade from the priesthood. Throughout the book, Martin is presented as a liar and fantasist, claims backed by reputable commentators, e.g. Fr. Richard Woods OP, in the National Catholic Reporter^[5].

Martin was told not to live alone, and was introduced into the home of the wealthy, Greek-American Livanos family.^{[citation needed]} The practice of a priest living with a family, though well known in Europe, caused some scandal in the United States.^{[citation needed]} After his death, the New York Times implied an affair between Martin and Mrs. Livanos by labeling her "his companion".^{[citation needed]} Both she and Martin's interviewer and visitor, Bernard Janzen, have denied these claims.^{[citation needed]}

In 2004 Father Vincent O'Keefe S.J., former Vicar General of the Society of Jesus and a past President of Fordham University affirmed that Martin had never been laicized.^{[citation needed]} O'Keefe stated that Martin had been released from all his priestly vows save the vow of chastity.^{[citation needed]} It is claimed that attacks were mounted on Martin in retaliation for his book The Jesuits, which is hostile to the Jesuit order of which he had formerly been a member. In the book, he accuses the Jesuits of deviating from their original character and mission by embracing Liberation Theology.^{[citation needed]}

With regard to the accusations that his non-fiction writings are suspect, Martin supporters say his writings concerning exorcism are in line with similar writings by Father Gabriele Amorth O.S.P.P.E., the senior Roman Catholic exorcist of Rome.^{[citation needed]} Other supports point out that Martin refused considerable monetary offers from publishers to write about his encounter with serial killer David Berkowitz, better known as the "Son of Sam."^{[citation needed]} The serial killer had requested a visit from Martin in jail, which Martin granted. He would not, however, fulfill the killer's request of publishing his story.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] End of life

Martin died after a fall in his apartment in Manhattan, New York, in 1999. His funeral wake took place in St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Chapel of West Orange, New Jersey. Requiem Mass for his repose was offered by the late Father Paul A. Wickens (April 14, 1930–July 8, 2004). Martin is buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, in Hawthorne, New York.

[edit] Books by Martin

• The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Publications universitaires, Louvain, 1958
• The Pilgrim, Farrar, Straus, New York, 1964 (written under the pseudonym of Michael Serafian)
• The Encounter, Dial Press (1983 reprint), New York, 1969, ISBN 0385279043
• Three Popes and the Cardinal, Farrar, Straus and Giroux , New York, 1972, ISBN 0374276757
• Jesus Now, Dutton, New York, 1973, ISBN 0525136754,
• The Final Conclave, Stein and Day, New York, 1978, ISBN 0812824342
• King of Kings: a Novel, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1980, ISBN 0671247077
• The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, Putnam, New York, 1981, ISBN 0399126651
• The New Castle; Reaching for the Ultimate, Dutton, New York, 1984, ISBN 0525165533
• Rich Church, Poor Church, Putnam, New York, 1984, ISBN 0399129065
• There is Still Love, Macmillan, New York, 1984, ISBN 0025804405
• Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Living Americans, Perennial Library (1987 reprint), New York, 1986, ISBN 0060971037, 2nd edition with a new preface by the author: Harper, San Francisco, 1992, ISBN 006065337X
• Vatican: a Novel, Harper & Row, New York, 1986, ISBN 0060154780
• The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church, Simon & Schuster, Linden Press, New York, 1987, ISBN 0671545051
• The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1990, ISBN 0671691740
• Windswept House, Doubleday, New York, 1996, ISBN 0385484089

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Luigi Marinelli's Shroud of Secrecy: The Story of Corruption Within the Vatican
• William H. Kennedy's Lucifer's Lodge: Satanic Ritual Abuse in the Catholic Church
• Charles Upton's The System of Antichrist
• Nicholas Hagger's The Secret History of the West and The Syndicate
• Ralph M. Wiltgen's The Rhine Flows into the Tiber
• I Millenari's Fumo di Satana in Vaticano
• Alfred Kunz

[edit] External links

• Website dedicated to Father Malachi Martin
• Coast to Coast AM's Guest Page on Father Malachi Martin
• Father Malachi Martin on Triumph Communications
• Who was Father Malachi Martin?
• About Father Malachi Martin