I was wondering if there are any comments or thoughts on Malachi Martin?

-- kARL (pARKERKAJWEN@HOTMAIL.COM), May 27, 2003

Answers

Have a look at these titles by Malachi Martin:

The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls
The Pilgrim (under the pseudonym Michael Serafian)
The Encounter
Three Popes and the Cardinal
Jesus Now
The New Castle
Hostage to the Devil
The Final Conclave
King of Kings (a novel)
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church
There Is Still Love
Rich Church, Poor Church
Vatican (a novel)
The Jesuits

My question: Should I really take the time to read Martin's books?

rod

-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), May 28, 2003.

Emerald-

I'm not judging the book; I am questioning the author's reputation.

I should have made it clear, sorry. Although, being wide open does allow for many new ideas.

Still in the broom closet next to the air fresheners.

-- rod (elreyrod@yahoo.com), May 29, 2003.

Don't worry rod, I'm just teasing you man. Couldn't resist! lol.

I'm bad for posting anyways, but I peek in every now and then to see what's up.

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), May 29, 2003.

Windswept House was terrific.

I once found his address through someone who was an acquaintance of his and wrote to him about a question I had.

He took the time to write a kind and very Catholic response. I was impressed. It was not too long before he died. I think he was a good man based upon my limited knowledge and the response he personally wrote to me.

Karl

-- Karl (Parkerkajwen@hotmail.com), May 29, 2003.

Malachi Martin, was a man whose reputation was smeared by those exposed by his books. He was a complex man,who was an insider, and then became an outsider. Some claim tha he remainded an insider who was working as a double agent. I don't think so. By the way, he always said the traditional Mass, and was in fact buried from a traditional Mass.

-- Phil G. (Phillip@earthlink.com), May 29, 2003.

my experience with malachi martin runs only so deep as the text HOSTAGE TO THE DEVIL. in my opinioin this wasnt a bad book, although it was a very graphic text with a brief history of the practice of excorcism, a short discussion on excoricism, five actual cases and their histories, etc. its a good book if youre interested in the subject of excorcism.

-- paul (dontsendmemail@notanaddress.com), May 29, 2003.

Jmj

The EWTN site has a short article on M. Martin and "Windswept House."

Here is a brief article published at the time of Martin's death.
[You may find that an advertising bar covers the part of the text that reads: "NEW YORK (CWNews.com) - Father Malachi Martin, a Catholic priest and bestselling author of 16 books, died in New York City on Tuesday following a stroke and was buried on Thursday [c. July 30, 1999].

If you'd like to read an older forum thread that has a debate about M. Martin in it, click here.

I agree with what you said about the "Hostage" book, "little paul." It's the only thing I've read by Martin. I intended to read other things, but then heard him speak at a pro-life conference. He was so bizarre and said such outlandish things that I had to walk out on him. I think that he was seriously disturbed.

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), June 03, 2003.

Hi, John. Where have you been keeping yourself?

Our forum is infested again. Good posts, lots of friction, lots of glory to God, if we look at the bright side.

I am always leery of ex-priests of the Catholic strain; whatever their game. Malachi M. is a sad specimen. Maybe that's why I can never make myself finish anything he wrote. Novels are such a waste of time anyway. I once loved the writing of Graham Greene many years back. He was a sorry Catholic, but much more talented than Martin. Even without holy orders!

I would have loved to write a big novel. I could have, if only I'd had the discipline. Man proposes, God disposes.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 04, 2003.

Is anyone out there still interested? I am, for personal reasons. Malachi Martin got to me when I was a teenager and I'm still trying to clean up the mess.

SGC

-- Sarah Colwell (sgcolwell@yahoo.com), December 05, 2003.

I have read several of his books and he seems to pretty much know what is going on behind the sceens and discusses it before it is know publically. What kind of mess did he create in your life??

-- S Evans (sevans9999@aol.com), December 26, 2003.

Yeah, NOW he knows what's going on behind the scenes -- because he's DEAD.

In his later years, he just pretended to know what was going on. In reality, he was "out of the loop," discredited, a mixed up conspiracy theorist.

-- (Mal@Was.Mal), December 27, 2003.

A wise old priest I once knew attended the 1992 CELAM conference in Santo Domingo, Domenican republic. While there he had a chance to meet many of the bishops and senior prelates of Latin America... and came back with a very interesting metaphor for the Church: it's like a beautiful painting.

The artist uses a canvas made of rough sewn fibers - which in and of themselves are not so beautiful and which remain as a substratum holding up the paint. The same thing can thus be simultaneously beautiful and to a degree, ugly or ordinary, if seen from different points of view.

So it is with the Church: Christ produces a beautiful masterpiece in every age - saints, holy people and their many good works and sacrifices...but also lots of ordinary, fallible people too - and even the saints have rough edges. Naturally any organization with a billion members, native to every land and ethnic group, will have a wide array of differences both in quality of life and quantity of formation...the Church has never been a monolith because "catholics" have never been clones.

The problem with Fr Martin and other conspiracy buffs in general is that they have an angelic view of humanity. They don't take into account human weakness as well as divine grace that can elevate the least likely person into a great saint.

No, their conspiracy theories only really work if you consider human beings to be basically constant and morally static: no growth (much like the angels who after their primordial choice are either eternally holy or eternally evil).

But because the Body of Christ is composed of free "incarnate spirits" who by nature are social and need education and moral guidance, it is absolutely impossible for each individual to be identical - and hence, predictable. But conspiracy theories hinge on a certain simplicity and predictableness...

So if your theory holds that the Society of Jesus is responsible for all the evil in the world, you must conclude that all Jesuits are equally "in the loop" of the "conspiracy". And also that those "evil henchmen" involved won't change, get lazy, miss clear opportunities, tire, or even change their ways.

It's just sloppy thinking. Maybe some Jesuits dropped the ball at key historical moments. Maybe others followed suit and the vast grey majority of sheep meekly followed their lead. But we're not talking "orcs of Mordor" here getting psychic commands from on high. We're talking human nature and the dynamics of groups (for example, any 3-4 people can get a crowd applauding if, while sitting in diffent places in the crowd they begin clapping at the same time).

But does this mean those 4 people are conspirators? Not necessarily. Does it mean the crowd is "in" the conspiracy too? Not necessarily. Maybe half are clapping on social reflex. It takes an exceptional person to stand up against the crowd - not because the crowd is formally organized against him or her, but because human respect and inertia are real phenomena of our social nature.

All this being said, I do believe that conspiracies are possible - in fact they happen all the time. Any time you organize a party, pic- nic, or get together...any time you plan a surprise birthday party, or go in with business partners to buy some land, or found a business you are in a way "conspiring" to achieve something.

Freedom of association and speech being what they are, people will always gather with like-minded souls to achieve certain objectives. This includes the Church, government, society, you name it.

The line to be drawn though is when you try to explain EVERYTHING as the direct effect of a single (and small) group of plotters as though they controlled not only themselves but everyone which in reality they're merely influencing.

Influence and control are two very different things.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), December 29, 2003.

Malachi Martin's view of humanity never seemed to me to be angelic although I do agree that it was static. I'd describe him as an antinomian Catholic, if such a being can exist. He seduced me when I was a teenager--not a canny Lolita, but a frail product of familial abuse. Never, during the ten years we were "together," did he display any feeling of hypocrisy or regret. He professed to believe that,with me, as in other areas of his life, he had been granted a dispensation and could do as he liked as long as an inviolate version of himself persisted in the mind of God. The conspiracy theories were something else. He was never the same after the fall of the Soviet Union.

SGC

-- Sarah Colwell (sgcolwell@hotmail.com), January 08, 2004.

A coarse thread, certainly, but with an elegant veneer. Malachi Martin seduced me when I was a teenager. I watched him closely, intimately, for ten years. He was a confabulist.

SGC

-- Sarah Colwell (sgcolwell@yahoo.com), January 08, 2004.

You mean a confabulator, and yes he was.

In Christ, Bill

-- Bill Nelson (bnelson45@hotmail.com), January 08, 2004.