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| 18th | Top University College Dublin people |
| 180th | Top Irish people |
| 59th | Top Catholic authors |
| Malachi Brendan Martin | |
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| Born | July 23, 1921 Ballylongford, County Kerry, Irish Republic |
| Died | July 27, 1999 (aged 78) Manhattan, New York, USA |
| Nationality | Irish, US-American |
| Other names | Michael Serafian, F.E. Cartus, Pushkin, Forest, Timothy O'Boyle-Fitzharris S.J. |
| Occupation | Priest, Professor at the Vatican's Pontifical Biblical Institute, exorcist, theologian, author |
Malachi Brendan Martin Ph.D. (July 23, 1921 – July 27, 1999) was a Catholic priest, theologian, writer on the Catholic Church, and professor at the Vatican's Pontifical Biblical Institute. He held three doctorates[1][2] and was the sole author of sixteen books covering religious and geopolitical topics, which were published in eight languages. He wrote additional books under pen names and in collaboration with others. He was a controversial commentator on the Vatican and other matters involving the Church.[3] Martin spoke at least ten languages[4][5] including Gaelic, English, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Hebrew and Modern Arabic, and also knew classical languages like Latin, Classical Greek, Aramaic and Classical Arabic. He lived in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey, France, and the United States and travelled extensively throughout Europe, Asia and the Middle East.[1]
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Martin was born prematurely [4] in the village of Ballylongford, County Kerry, in the Irish Republic. He received his secondary education at Belvedere College in Dublin, and became a Jesuit novice on September 6, 1939 at the age of eighteen. Due to the Second World War and the inherent risks involved with travel during this time, Malachi remained in Ireland and studied at the National University of Ireland where he received a bachelor's degree in Semitic languages, and Oriental history while carrying out concurrent study in Assyriology at Trinity College.[4]
Upon completion in Dublin, Malachi was sent to the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium to continue with his scholarly learnings. During the four year stay in Leuven he completed masters degrees in philosophy and theology and got doctorates in Semitic languages, archeology and Oriental history. On August 15, 1954, the day of the Feast of the Assumption, Martin was ordained a Jesuit priest at age thirtythree.[4]
Father Martin commenced with postgraduate studies at both the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Oxford University, specializing in intertestamentary studies and knowledge of Jesus Christ and of Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts. He undertook additional study in rational psychology, experimental psychology, physics and anthropology.[6]
Father Martin took part in the research of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and published twentyfour articles on Semitic paleography in various journals.[7][8] He did archeological research and worked extensively on the Byblos syllabary in Byblos,[9] in Tyre,[10] both in Lebanon, and in the Sinai Peninsula. Martin took part as assistant in his first exorcism whilst staying in Egypt for archeological research. It was upon a Muslim.[4] For his academic research, he consulted frequently the British Museum, the Cairo Museum, the Musée de Beirut and the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris.[10] He published his standard work in two volumes, The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in 1958.[11]
Martin travelled publicly and clandestine to Eastern Europe and Soviet-Russia during and after the reign of Pius XII. He carried out sacramental missions and was active in intelligence gathering for the church.[12]
He was permanently summoned to Rome to work within the Holy See and act as a private secretary for Cardinal Augustin Bea S.J. from 1958 until 1964. This brought him into close contact with Pope John XXIII. His years in Rome coincided with the start of the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), all of the sessions he took part in [4] and which was to transform the Catholic Church in a way that the initially-liberal Martin began to find distressing.
While in Rome, he became a professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute of the Vatican, where he taught Aramaic, paleography, Hebrew and Sacred Scripture.[4] During a certain period his living quarters were at the Vatican, just outside of the papal quarters of John XXIII.[4] He worked for the Orthodox Churches and ancient Oriental Churches devision of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity under Cardinal Bea, as a translator. As a result of this, Martin became well acquainted with prominent Jewish leaders, like rabbi Abraham J. Heschel, during 1961 and 1962.[13] Martin also accompanied Paul VI during his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in January 1964.[12]
Disillusioned by the reforms taking place among the Jesuits, the Church's largest religious order, Martin requested special dispensation. He received a release from his vows of poverty and obedience in 1964 after 25 years as a Jesuit religious from Pope Paul VI personally, and left Rome suddenly that June.[14] He was not released from his vow of chastity and remained an ordained but secular priest.[15] Paul VI gave him a general commission for exercising an apostolate in the media and communications.[4]
After a brief stay in Paris of eight months were he worked as a translator, Martin relocated for a few months to Ireland where he stayed with family.[4] During his stay in Ireland he was falsely rumored to have a mental breakdown by local jesuits.[4] Therefore he moved permanently to New York City in 1965, where he first had to make ends meet as a dishwasher, a waiter and taxi driver before being able to make his living by his writings.[4] He co-founded an antiques firm and was active in the communications and media field for the rest of his life.[6] The campaign of false rumors of a problematic history concerning his mental health and moral behaviour was continued by American jesuits.[4]
After his arrival in New York, Cardinal Terence Cooke gave him written permission to exercise his secular priestly faculties. The cardinal advised him to find lodging with a family rather than live alone as he initially did. He moved to the Manhattan home of Kakia Livanos and her family. She was his landlady and provided his rooms, his meals, and the oratory where he said daily Mass.[15]
In 1964, Martin, under the pseudonym Michael Serafian, wrote The Pilgrim: Pope Paul VI, The Council and The Church in a time of decision, an apologia for the Jews, which, among other things, told the inside story on the Jewish question and the Second Vatican Council.
In 1967 Martin received his first Guggenheim fellowship.[2] In 1969 he got his first breakthrough with his book The Encounter: Religion in Crisis which was the result of his expertise in the study of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and with which he won the Choice Book Award of the American Library Association.[16] Afterwards came other liberally oriented books like Three Popes and the Cardinal: The Church of Pius, John and Paul in its Encounter with Human History (1972) and Jesus Now: How Jesus has no Past, Will not come Again and in loving actions is Dissolving the Molds of Our Spent Society (1973).[citation needed] Martin became an American citizen in 1970.
He received a second Guggenheim fellowship in 1969, which enabled him to write his first of four bestsellers,[17] Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Living Americans. With this book, published in 1975, Martin appeared to have retreated to the more orthodox mode of exorcist.[citation needed] According to the book, he assisted in several exorcisms. In 1996 he confirmed having performed thousands of minor exorcisms, and participated as an assistant [4] to a few hundreds of major exorcisms during his lifetime.[18]
Psychiatrist Morgan 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.[19] He later fell out with Martin.[20]
During that decade, Martin also served as religion editor for National Review[21][22][23] from 1972 to 1978, when he was succeeded by Michael Novak. He was interviewed twice by William F. Buckley, Jr. for Firing Line on PBS.[24] He also was an editor for the Encyclopedia Britannica.[25] His long time literary agent was Lila Karpf.[26]
Martin published several books in quick succession the following years. The Final Conclave (1978), King of Kings: a Novel of the Life of David (1980) and Vatican: A Novel (1986) were factional novels. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church (1981), The New Castle: Reaching for the Ultimate (1982), Rich Church, Poor Church: The Catholic Church and its Money (1984) and There is Still Love: Five Parables of God's Love That Will Change Your Life (1984) were non-fictional works.
His bestselling [17] 1987 non-fiction book The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church was very critical of his previous eclessiastical order. The book accused them of systematically undermining church teachings and replacing them with communist doctrines.[27]
His book The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West was published in 1990 and was followed in 1996 by Windswept House: A Vatican Novel. Martin worked closely with the paranormal researchers Dave Considine and John Zaffis on several of their independent cases.[citation needed]
Martin continued to daily offer the traditional Latin mass privately and vigorously exercised his priestly ministry all the way up until his death. He was strongly supported by traditional Catholics and severely criticized by liberal Catholics, like the National Catholic Reporter.[28][29][30]
Martin served as a guest commentator for CNN during the live coverage of the pastoral visit of John Paul II to the United States October 4 till 8 1995.
He was a periodic guest on Art Bell's radio program, Coast to Coast AM, between 1995 and 1998 and a guest of Michael Corbin's radio program on Paranet Continuum radio.
In the last three years of his life, Martin had forged a close friendship with the traditional Catholic philosopher, Fr. Rama Coomaraswamy.[31]
In the final years before his death, Martin was received in a private audience by pope John Paul II.[12] Afterwards, he started working on a book with the working title Primacy: How the Institutional Roman Catholic Church became a Creature of the New World Order.[14] This book which promised to be his most controversial and detailed work ever was never completed.[32]
Denise Zuppe was his secretary assistant during the last years of his life.[33] He suffered a minor stroke in the summer of 1998.[33]
Martin died of brain hemorrhage after a fall to the head in his apartment in Manhattan, New York, in 1999.[33] He was hospitalized, received the traditional sacrament of extreme unction, and a few days later pronounced dead at Lenox Hill Hospital.[12] 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) before being buried within the Gate of Heaven Cemetery, in Hawthorne, New York.
Martin's father, Dr. Connor Martin, a gynecologist of British decent, provided free services to the IRA and he had was a judge in the Sinn Fein courts during the Irish War of Independence. His mother was Catherine Fitzmaurice-Martin, of Irish decent.[34]
The Martin family had 9 living children.[4] Malachi Martin had 3 religious brothers: Rev. prof. dr. Francis Xavier Martin, Rev. William (Liam) Martin O.S.A. and Rev. prof. dr. Conor Martin.[35] Martin had four sisters, Marie Therese (Maura) Ferntren-Martin, Kathleen (Kay) Doyle-Martin, Etnia (Netta) Kelly-Martin and Joan (Josette) O'Dowd-Martin, who survived him. Martin did have a brother, James (Jim) Martin, who died very young.[4]
Fr. Liam Martin, his nephew, was private secretary to John Charles McQuaid C.S.Sp., archbishop of Dublin.[36]
He was closely related to John Edmund Fitzmaurice, former bishop of Erie, Philadelphia and Edmond John Fitzmaurice, former bishop of Wilmington, Delaware.[34]
Martin produced numerous best-selling fictional and non-fictional literary works, which became widely read throughout the world. His fictional works gave detailed insider accounts of papal and church history during the reigns of Popes Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI (The Pilgrim, Three Popes and the Cardinal, Vatican: A Novel [17]), John Paul I (The Final Conclave [17]) and John Paul II (The Keys of This Blood, Windswept House).
His non-fictional writings cover a range of Catholic topics, such as demonic exorcisms (Hostage to the Devil), satanism, liberation theology, the Second Vatican Council (The Pilgrim), the Tridentine liturgy, Catholic dogma, modernism (Three Popes and the Cardinal; The Jesuits), financial history of the church (Rich Church, Poor Church; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church), the new world order and the geopolitical importance of the Pope (The Keys of This Blood).
His fictional writings give an insiders view of papal and church history from pope Pius XII to pope John Paul II, of communist and masonic infiltration of the Catholic Church (The Final Conclave; Vatican: A Novel; Windswept House). He also used this technique to write about old testamentary history (King of Kings).
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.
Supporters of Fr. Nicholas Gruner said Martin was privileged to secretive information pertaining to Vatican and other world issues,[37] which included the appartions of Our Lady in Fatima.[4] He spoke and wrote often about the three secrets of Fatima and was an ardent supporter of Gruner in this: "Father Gruner is fulfilling a desperately needed function in the ongoing perception of Mary's role in the salvation of our imperilled world. Father Gruner is absolutely correct that the consecration of Russia as - Our Lady desired, has not been executed".[38]
He was an outspoken opponent of the alleged apparitions of the Virgin Mary at Bayside in the United States [12] and Međugorje in former Yugoslavia.[39] Martin regretted writing the foreword of The Thunder of Justice: The Warning, the Miracle, the Chastisement, the Era of Peace, a 1993 book by Ted and Maureen Flynn [40] defending, among others, the apparitions in Međugorje, stating that false pretences were used in obtaining his recommendation.[41]
Concerning the Garabandal apparitions, he remained open-minded.[42]
Martin believed the multiple ordinations of sedevacantist bishops by the former Archbishop of Huế, Vietnam, Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục, although not allowed, were sacramentally valid.[43]
In March 1997 Martin said on Radio Liberty's Steel on Steel, hosted by John Loefller, that two popes were murdered during the Twentieth century:
Martin also partially gave credence to the Siri Thesis, saying that Cardinal Giuseppe Siri was twice elected pope in papal conclaves, but declined his election after being pressured by worldly forces acting through cardinals present at the conclaves. Martin called this the little brutality. On the one hand, Martin says that Siri was intimidated: on the other hand he says that Siri did indicate that his decision not to accept was made freely.[43][45]
Martin, who spoke many languages, was present at both conclaves as a translator.[citation needed]
Martin claimed that Popes John XXIII and Paul VI were freemasons during a certain period and that photographs and other detailed documents proving this were in the possession of the Vatican State Secretariat.[43] He also allegorically mentioned these supposed facts in his 1986 novel Vatican: A Novel, where he related the masonic adherence of popes Giovanni Angelica and Giovanni De Brescia.[16] He also said that Archbishop Annibale Bugnini C.M. was a freemason and that Agostino Casaroli, long time Cardinal Secretary of State, was an atheist.[43]
In his book The Final Conclave, published on 1 August 1978,[46] the month of the 1978 conclave that resulted in the 28 August election of Albino Luciani, Malachi Martin wrote of the unexpected election of a Cardinal Angelico, a figure that has been interpreted as corresponding to Luciani.[47]
Martin stated that, along with diabolic possession, angelic possession also exists and that angels could have use of preternatural powers in certain circumstances.[4][18]
Martin was convinced that the antichrist described in the Book of Revelation was a literal historical figure, and was alive in 1996.[18]
There were two allegations made against Martin of having an affair with a woman:
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. O'Keefe stated that Martin had been released as a religious from all his vows - poverty and obedience - save the vow of chastity.[54] Martin no longer was a Jesuit but remained a (secular) priest during the rest of his life.
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.[54] In the book, he accuses the Jesuits of deviating from their original character and mission by embracing Liberation Theology.[55]
During a videotaped memorial entitled Malachi Martin Weeps For His Church, Rama Coomaraswamy, a sedevacantist clergyman, claimed that Martin had told him that he had been secretly ordained a bishop during the reign of Pius XII in order to travel behind the Iron Curtain ordaining priests and bishops for the underground churches of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Coomaraswamy died in 2006.[12][56][57][58]
The book The Pilgrim: Pope Paul VI, The Council and The Church in a time of decision was written by Martin under the pseudonym Michael Serafian. This was confirmed by Martin himself and corroborated independently by Prof. Dr. Hans Küng.[59] Martin related that his choice of surname, Serafian, is due to meeting a carpet dealer in Jerusalem with that name, during the pilgrimage of Paul VI to the Holy Land in January 1964.[12]
Journalist Joseph Roddy alleged - in a 1966 Look Magazine article about the debate on the Jewish question during the Second Vatican Council [60] - that one and the same person under three different pseudonyms had written or acted on behalf of Jewish interest groups, such as the American Jewish Committee, to influence the outcome of the debates. Roddy wrote that two timely and remunerated 1965 articles were penned under the pseudonym of F.E. Cartus, one for Harper's Magazine [61] and one for the American Jewish Committee’s influential intellectual periodical Commentary Magazine.[62][63] Roddy further stated that tidbits of information were leaked to the New York press that detailed Council failings vis a vis the Jews under the pseudonym of Pushkin. Roddy also stated that these two unidentified persons were one and the same person - a young cleric-turned-journalist and a Jesuit of Irish decent working for Cardinal Bea and who was active in the Biblical Institute - he figuratively named as Timothy O'Boyle-Fitzharris S.J. in order not to reveal the true identity of his source. Roddy also mentions The Pilgrim in a footnote to his article.
John Grasmeier, moderator of the traditionalist Catholic Internet forum angelqueen.org, alleged in 2007 that Michael Serafian was the same individual who was identified in 1966 under the pseudonyms of F.E. Cartus, Pushkin and Timothy O'Boyle-Fitzharris S.J. by Joseph Roddy, and concluded that Martin was thus an insider agent for the Jewish community during the Second Vatican Council and therefore a traitor to the church.[64] He based his allegations on a very liberal interpretion of the research on documents belonging to the Farrar, Straus & Giroux Collection, archived in the Manuscripts Department of the New York Public Library. These allegations were denied by supporters of Martin, like Catholic author William H. Kennedy and non-Catholic blogger Marnie Tunay. Tunay states that, although the documents that Grasmeier provided to support his claims were interesting - and make a good circumstantial case that Martin was paid to lobby on behalf of Jewish lobby groups during the Council who wished to make their religious interests heard - there is no evidence whatsoever to his allegation that Martin was a spy who leaked confidential information from the Council to those lobby groups.[65]
In his 2007 book Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, Edward K. Kaplan confirmed that Martin cooperated with the American Jewish Committee during the Council for a mixture of motives, both lofty and ignoble. He primarily advised the committee on theological issues, but he also provided logistical intelligence and copies of restricted documents. It is confirmed in the book that Martin used the pseudonyms Forest and Pushkin.[13] Kaplan further acknowledges that the kiss and tell book about the internal workings of the Council, The Pilgrim by Michael Serafian, was requested from Martin by Abraham J. Heschel, who also arranged the book to be published by Roger W. Straus, Jr.'s Farrar, Straus and Giroux printing company. It was published in the hope that it would influence the deliberations in the council.[13] Once that Martin's identity as author was revealed, it led to protests and the book had to be removed from circulation at considerable financial loss to the publisher. This led to the end of friendly relations between Martin and Heschel and Straus.[13] Kaplan lastly states that Malachi Martin was the primary source of information for Joseph Roddy in writing his 1966 article for Look Magazine, and that Fr. Timothy O'Boyle-Fitzharris S.J. was in fact Martin. Kaplan judges the Roddy article as dangerously misleading because of the credence it gives to the claim that without organised Jewish pressure the council declaration on the Jews would not have been accepted.[13]
Martin explicitly denied he was a spy, along with denying other rumors. Michael Cuneo, in his book American Exorcism writes that, "Martin told me that he was perplexed, and more than a little annoyed, by the swirl of rumors surrounding his personal life." He quotes Martin as saying:
Look, I've had three heart operations, recently open-heart surgery, and I'm at the point where I'd like to put some of these stories to rest," he said. "I've been accused of everything; speculation on my life is a veritable cottage industry. I'm a lecher, a wife-stealer, and a spy; I'm secretly married with children; I've sexually abused little girls– it's all nothing but fancy.[66]
Rumors appearing on various Catholic or sedevacantist websites [67][68] and magazines [69] alleged that Malachi Martin had Jewish ancestry on account of ancestral descendancy from Iberian Jews migrating to Ireland and Great-Britain in the 15th century, and alleged him being an Israeli spy [4] because of his first name, Malachi, after a Hebrew prophet and his extensive travels in the Levant. These allegations were proven without ground by William H. Kennedy in his article In Defense of Father Malachi Martin.[70] After having made genealogical inquiries with surviving relatives of Martin in Ireland, Kennedy concluded that Martin's father was an Englishman who moved to Ireland and his mother was fully Irish. Fr. Rama Coomasrawamy confirmed this independently.[12]
Claims that Martin features as a curial monsignor in full regalia on a prominent 1979 photograph next to Pope John Paul I and his assistant Diego Lorenzi appeared on the Internet.[71] The photograph, published in David Yallop's In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I as number 28 between pages 120 and 121, shows a 'Monsignor Martin', visibly different from Malachi Martin.[72] This is a case of mistaken identity. The cleric in the photograph was Jacques-Paul Martin, Prefect of the Casa Pontificia between 1969-86.[73][74]
Dutch translations exist.
   | Malachi Martin - Star Harbor: Viva Padre Malachi Martin! |
| | Coast to Coast AM's Guest Page on Father Martin - Guests - Coast to Coast AM |
| | Documents concerning the allegation that Martin was a Jewish double agent. - Angelqueen.org :: View topic - AQ Exclsv: Malachi Martin's Double Agent Status DOCUMENTED |
| | Father Malachi Martin on Triumph Communications - Triumph Communications - Audio Cassettes - Malachi Martin |
| | Father Malachi Martin on YouTube - YouTube - Malachi Martin |
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