Has anyone from this forum read this book? If you have, can you tell me your thoughts on it? The author: Malachi Martin

Thanks in advance, Judi

-- Judi (lightnbug@hotmail.com), March 02, 2002

Answers

Jmj

I have not read the book, but the author cannot be recommended. (I read another book by him.)
Mr. Martin left the active priesthood (Jesuit) in 1965 and died in 1999. In my opinion, he had a dangerous proclivity toward believing conspiracy theories, did not fully accept Vatican II, thought that the Vatican was overrun by satanic, influence, and was also a theological and liturgical ultra-traditionalist. I heard him speak live at a banquet once, and I had to get up and walk out on him, because he sounded so loony.

The EWTN site says this about him:
"Concerning Malachi Martin's ... theological tack it should be noted than on his former web page ... he accepted as his own the Profession of Faith of Campos. Campos is the Brazilian diocese where for many years the bishop, Antonio de Castro Mayer, refused to implement the liturgical decisions of Pope Paul VI, just as Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (the founder of the Society of St. Pius X) had done. In June 1989 when Archbishop Lefebvre ordained 4 bishops, contrary to the explicit will of Pope John Paul II, then retired bishop Castro Mayer assisted at the ordination and was excommunicated along with Archbishop Lefebvre and the four ordinands [canon 1382, Ecclesia dei]. The Profession of Faith of Campos clearly manifests the same spirit of self-judgment concerning Tradition, its extent, its interpretation and its application which brought about this schism. And while this text professes an admirable adherence to Tradition, it undercuts this profession by opposing the actual decisions of the only one capable of authentically interpreting Tradition. Sadly, based on his web site it seems evident that Malachi Martin, who on many occasions [had] defended the Church in public discourse, shared these positions."

God bless you.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), March 02, 2002.

John, as I mentioned on a post a few weeks ago, the Diocese of Campos is now in full communion with Rome as a traditionalist diocese. I wouldn't blast someone just because he is a traditionalist. Yes, many of these "capital T" traditionlists are confused, and we must pray for them. Martin might have some odd ideas but that does not decrease the value of much of his writing. As Father Rutler once said, Martin was an Irishman and had a bit of the blarney in him. He also had a liberal period, by the way, so I would caution against those writings (his earlier books) more than against the later ones. "TheJesuits," "Windswept House" and yes, even "Keys of This Blood" have some good reading in them (the second is fiction, by the way, and the one that has the alledge satanic Mass in the Vatican). His book "There is Still Love" is quite a beautiful book on the subject of Love.

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), March 03, 2002.

Also, I forgot, Martin did have some looney sounding ideas. He appeared on the Art Bell show (late night talk show) espousing some odd notions. Still, assuming you can filter out the fiction vs the fact, his writing makes for some interesting reading.

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), March 03, 2002.

Jmj

That's the trouble, Christina.
I'm probably the only person at this forum who would say this, but I've decided that I don't believe in "filtering."
Life is too short.

There are thousands of books by hundreds of totally reliable authors (especially saints and popes), and each of us could read 24 hours a day until the end of his/her life without finishing the reading of all those good books.
I don't want to lose even a few hours of my life by occasionally reading a dud (i.e., a book that goes against Church teaching) -- something that I could have avoided because I knew in advance that the author was unpredictable.
In like manner, I won't ever watch a TV series that has been known to have shown immoral acts or anti-Catholicism. Life is too short. I can watch EWTN 24 hours a day for the rest of my life without encountering something that tempts me to do evil. I'm not going to tune in to the undependable networks and "filter" out the bad stuff. They don't deserve to have me watching at all, just as (in my opinion) Mr. Martin doesn't deserve to have me read any more of his books.

God bless you.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), March 03, 2002.

Christina--
I have to agree with John. Why bother with these authors when good ones are always there and they nourish your spiritual life?

I remember starting the novel ''The Exorcist'', by Wm Peter Blatty. By the fourth or fifth chapter my soul was being withered in the obscenity and banality of the plot and characters, that I tore the paperback book in bits and pieces. I destroyed it, so no one would be able to retrieve my copy.

Is it my scruples? Wasn't the novel at bottom supportive of faith, and the power of the Church?

It didn't matter. I felt it was polluting ME-- to read just the first chapters.

I'm sure others will hoot at me; for my supercilious and reactionary ways!

Let them. I don't know why God should fail me. He is served by FAITHFUL, not unfaithful Catholics. We have control over our taste and over our conduct. Nobody else can govern our interior selves.

I've never read the Malachi Martin books. I don't think I ever will. Chewing gum for the mind, IMHO /

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), March 04, 2002.

You can count on me not to "hoot at" you, Gene.
What you did was courageous and wise. Your guardian angel lent his "muscle" to every ripping of a page.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), March 04, 2002.

I would hardly call "The Keys of This Blood" or "The Jesuits" chewing gum for the mind.

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), March 04, 2002.

Christina

AS far as I am concerned, anyone who writes to hurt GOD's church is to be ignored. That is it. Hate is an evil thing and anyone who teaches falsely the manner these people do, do not deserve any credit.

-- Fred Bishop (fcbishop@globaleyes.net), March 04, 2002.

OK, Christina; Let me say that if you find them to your taste, go ahead and read them. They are so-so food for your mind. I meant that they were essentially escapism, but you find them fascinating in some ways. Why must I call it chewing gum; you're right. God bless you.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), March 04, 2002.

Again, Fred, I can hardly say that Martin, at least in his books of the last 20 years, is writing to hurt the Church. He greatly loved the Church and feared for Satan's attacks on her. "Keys of This Blood" talks of the foundations of Communism, the damage it has done, how Pope John Paul's example and leadership at least in part lead to it's downfall. You don't have to read a book that is bad to condemn it if others have critiqued it properly, but you are wrong to condemn Martin's books as bad. They have been featured in "The Wanderer" - hardly a liberal rag.

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), March 04, 2002.

Jmj

We are definitely not talking about "liberalism," Christina.
After looking at a couple of issues of "The Wanderer" in the 1980s, I found it a mixture of a few good articles and a slew of depressing, negative, muck-raking, far-right-wing nuggets. The editors seemed to enjoy spending a lot of column-inches putting down bishops and priests.
I couldn't bear to read any more of it, so I have never touched it again. It is a paper that has been published by laymen for quite a few decades -- without the sanction of U.S. bishops, to my knowledge. I seriously doubt that Pope John Paul II would enjoy reading it.
And so, if "The Wanderer" has pushed Mr. Martin's books, that is certainly nothing persuasive to me.
God bless you.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), March 05, 2002.

I'm really saddened to hear you feel that way about the Wanderer. It is definitely not run by far right nuts (try "The Remnant" for that). This is the paper kept my parents informed of the changes going on in the Church in the 70's and now I've been reading it since the 80's. Thank goodness the paper's editors have the courage to speak on the crazies who are trying to "modernize" the Church. What's better, the National Catholic Register, which, although has many good articles in it, never says anything bad about anybody amongst the Church leaders? I'm sure the Pope would approve of the Wanderer, and Mother Angelica, too.(I mention her because many of the posters here seem to follow EWTN a lot.) If you think the Wanderer is full of right wing crackpots, then I guess you must think things are pretty peachy and fine in the Catholic Church today, especially in this country.

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), March 05, 2002.

Hi, Christina.

Sorry if I used some words that misled you. I did not mean to go so far in my criticism of "The Wanderer" as you thought I meant.
I said that I liked some of its articles.
I never said that the publishers printed anything heretical. (Perhaps I should have mentioned that they have admirably avoided linking themselves with dissidents of both the Lefebvrist and "Call to Action" schisms [so-called "right" and "left"].)
I did not call the writers/publishers "far right nuts" or "right wing crackpots." Rather, I spoke of the bad articles that I hated as "far-right-wing nuggets."

Yes, the "National Catholic Register" is much better, in my opinion.
I just have to disagree with you about the Pope approving of "The Wanderer." I believe that he would consider it improper for a newpaper published by the laity to bash bishops and expose every part of our "dirty laundry" to public ridicule.
You mentioned Mother Angelica and EWTN. I have watched EWTN (including nearly every live appearance of Mother Angelica herself) almost every day since mid-1993 -- nine years ago. I have never even heard The Wanderer mentioned by anyone, much less approved of by Mother Angelica. The network tries to avoid bashing the Church, antagonizing bishops, etc.. (I am aware of one and only one conflict -- a problem involving Cardinal Mahoney several years ago.)
Finally, Christina, I am well aware (and very sad to have to say) that "things are [not always] pretty peachy and fine in the Catholic Church today, especially in this country." But I am against wallowing in pessimism and exposing scandals all over the place. I'll leave that to the politicians.

God bless you.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), March 05, 2002.

John, I appreciate your honesty. However, I don't think the Wanderer "bashes" bishops. It informs its readers of the problems in certain dioceses, certains parishes, etc. It also carries many good articles on the good things going on in the Church. I don't have TV but I do listen to Mother Angelica occasionally on shortwave and watch her when at friends' houses. I have seen her get very ruffled at certain goofy things going on - the Mahoney statement is one. I can also recall she got really upset when a woman played the part of Our Lord during the Stations of the Cross when the Pope was present. I'm sure there were other times she got annoyed at certain goings-on. She's feisty, as you know, and not afraid to speak her mind.

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), March 05, 2002.

Yes, Christina, Mother can definitely be feisty -- but has been remarkably less so for the last four or five years. I don't know if it has had to do with her physical healing, some guidance she may have been receiving from Fr. Joseph (or Bp. Foley), or something else, but she is much milder than before.

I do recall the incident involving the Stations of the Cross. Christina, time flies! That incident occurred 'way back in 1993, when the pope was in Denver for World Youth Day.

God bless you.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), March 05, 2002.

Christina, You are feisty to, and not afraid to speak your mind. That is also "pretty tough" not having a tv. That is great practise of self denial. God bless you. David S

-- David S (asdzxc8176@aol.com), March 06, 2002.

Thanks, David! Not so hard not having TV...I do get my old movies in on video, though. As do the kids.

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), March 06, 2002.

Christina, did you mean that don't have a television at all -- or that you do have one (and a VCR) but don't receive cable programming?
JFG

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), March 06, 2002.

I have a TV and VCR but receive no channels (no reception as we are blocked by hills and I'm not interested in an antenna or cable).

-- Christina (introibo2000@yahoo.com), March 06, 2002.

I have had the book for several years and was about to start reading it. Did he write any other books after The Keys Of This Blood ? Don

-- Don Scott (donscott@myexcel.ca), June 23, 2003.

Just a few thoughts on MM, and the state of the Church...

I've read so far The Jesuits, Hostage to the Devil, Windswept House, and am currently reading The Keys of This Blood. Through all of this reading I have certainly come to at least two conclusions about Fr. Malachi - that he was NOT a crackpot, and that he had great, great love for the Church. I have never read anything in his writings that goes against Church doctrines. He did leave the Jesuit order, but remained a functional priest in good standing (he left his vow of chastity intact, with the permission of Paul VI).

I started with Windswept House - a fictional book that Fr. Malachi claimed is 80% true. The book was written in the 90's - several years before the current scandals came out - before anyone could imagine the scope of the rot. It was all there in the book - the abuse and the homosexual networks. There may be those reading this that don't want to dig up scandals. The unfortunate thing is that if you don't look at these scandals squarely and know all about them, you won't really understand just how little the bishops in this country (or other countries) are doing to correct the problem, or even that they continue to perpetuate the problem.

I would like to interject at this point that I strongly recommend going to www.rcf.org. This website is run by a watchdog group in Illinois (lay people and religious working together) that was formed in response to scandals that happened in their diocese(though their membership is now worldwide). They are extremely circumspect in their investigations, very good at documentation. Whatever you've read in the papers (including the Register, which IMHO deliberately whitewashes the scandals) is the tip of the iceburg compared to what you will learn on this website. There is great reason to distrust bishops - but all I ask is for you to give the website a good read and decide for yourself. And then decide, after what you learn, if you can afford not to know the depth of what is happening in your Church.

I do not like criticizing bishops, but think for a moment. While bishops issue statements about the evils of abortion, they give communion to senators who rabidly advocate for it, even partial-birth abortion. Bishop Weigand spoke out against Gray Davis. I was so happy to see a bishop finally speak out against a pro- abortion "catholic" politician - until I read in the Register that it's just talk. There will be no follow up like, say, excommunication, if Davis doesn't clean up his act. If you read Crisi magazine, they are doing a series on this very issue, and THEY have called into question why bishops do NOTHING.

Fr. Malachi, in his book The Jesuits, gives a great historical foundation for why there is a great deal of disobedience in the hierarchy to the Pope and Catholic moral teaching in general. There are reasons why churches no longer have kneelers, or beautiful and meaningful icons/windows/sanctuaries. There are reasons why crosses are thrown into the dumpster (there are pictures of this on rcf's website), and that devotions such as to the Sacred Heart of Jesus are not only not observed but are scorned - by clergy! There are reasons why churches have been closed and razed to the ground. This isn't fundamentalist conspiracy whining - these things are happening! All symptoms of the moral rot of our leaders, and that has spread to the laity.

I grew up post-Vatican II. I wasn't someone who first-hand saw the differences of before and after. But my family suffered from an abusive priest and the cover-up afterward. A lot of the things Fr. Malachi has written about makes sense of a lot of the questions I had like -"How could things get THIS bad? How can a priest/bishop/cardinal/pope (yes I said Pope) turn his head when his fellow priest is abusing children or breaking his vows of chastity with other gay priests?" Because of RCF, and Fr. Malachi, I sadly understand so much more what has happened and continues to happen.

I'm sorry to go on so long, but Catholics need to know these things about their leaders. Perhaps Fr. Malachi was not right about everything he postulated, but he has been right about a great many things from what I've seen and read.

Thaks for reading, Deb

-- Deborah Sullivan (jsulmom@juno.com), August 06, 2003.

Hi Deborah; I'm with you all the way.

Get ready to get skewered, though... people 'round these parts don' take too kindly t' such reckonin's, if you know what I mean. There's a stubborn refusal to take stock of the gravity of our situation in the Church. Somehow they come to the conclusion that to consider such things is a denial of our Holy Faith; I haven't been able to pursuade them otherwise.

Godspeed! lol.

Oh btw, I have always thought it odd that after so many decades that the proposed text of the Third Secret of Fatima was released roughly a month after Malachi's death. You see, Malachi Martin knew the contents of the text.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), August 06, 2003.

Thanks Emerald,

One more thing I'd like to clarify. I have very mixed feelings about our Pope. I know he has done incredibly good and brave things for our faith, and I know he has not done anything to try to change Catholic moral teaching, but I also know there are certain things he neglected. I am at a total loss to figure out why - that's one of the reasons I've been reading so much of Fr. Malachi. He seemed to have the same attitude - great admiration and love for the Pope, and yet sad puzzlement over why he seemed to be ignoring certain Church problems. In my perusal of RCF's website, I've come to know that the Vatican knew much about sexual abuses for many years. I don't see how the Pope could have failed to know, and thus could have failed to act. I've been to one or two other Catholic chat rooms, but the answers offered by site moderators have been far from satisfactory.

And now, there is the news story about how highly placed Vatican officials wrote a document about how to secretly handle abuse cases. I'm curious to know how the bishops explain their initial reaction that the document has been 'taken out of context.' Not theat the press doesn't take things out of context all the time, especially where the Catholic Church is concerned (I've at times been an avid reader of The Catalyst, and I know what the press is capable of). It's just that after my readings and other observations, I'm not too hopeful about their explanation being true.

Anyway, I do hope that no one thinks I am trying to take down the faith. If anything, I am more determined than ever that the devil not turn me away from it through these scandals - that is what he is hoping for, after all. But one can't just close one's eyes to what is going on, because then how does one fight it? I say again, the depth of the problem must be known by all Catholics if we are to have a hope of restoring what has gone bad. Just one example before I go; When Bishop O'Malley was inducted into his new position in Boston this past week, I was outside with about 10 other people holding signs questioning why pro-abortion 'catholic' politicians were invited and given communion (Teddy Kennedy and John F. Kerry, in case you're wondering). There were only about 10 of us! Why? There should have been hundreds, if we take our faith seriously.

Well, that's it for now. Have a good night, all.

Deb Sullivan

-- Deb Sullivan (jsulmom@juno.com), August 07, 2003.

"Anyway, I do hope that no one thinks I am trying to take down the faith."

They will, but I can't stop them; but hey, I know that you aren't doing that.

"If anything, I am more determined than ever that the devil not turn me away from it through these scandals - that is what he is hoping for, after all."

Exactly. Or worse yet, he likes to have people denying the problems exist, because...

"...one can't just close one's eyes to what is going on, because then how does one fight it?"

Prayer and penance.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), August 08, 2003.

If anyone is interested, RCF has posted the vatican document re handling abuse cases on their site, so you can read it for yourself (it's 39 pages, though, so give yourself plenty of time.)

Deb

(p.s. sorry this is a bit off topic, but I thought I'd mention it.)

-- Deb S. (jsulmom@juno.com), August 08, 2003.

I think I like your style, Deb.

Karl

-- Karl (Parkerkkajwen@hotmail.com), August 09, 2003.