Continuing in our presentation of the Crimson Cross - the posthumous arena for 7 of the 15 charter recipients of the Tower of Trent Trophy - we honor today the fourth of the seven alphabetically as we present today a tribute to a man who was greatly maligned by his own Order for his honest exposition of its offenses in his book 'The Jesuits' and a prolific author of best sellers, he brought the Vatican and the inner mechanisms of the Church to the world through his novels which, as we see now in retrospect were prophecies for what he wrote seemingly as fiction has become fact. Therefore, to this Scribe of Intrigue and Inspiration who was not publicly vindicated of the charges against him until just a little over a month ago by the former Jesuit Superior General who sabotaged him and which was chronicled in our editorial A Reputation Recouped! in which most of what follows is taken from below. And so today it is right and proper that we honor Father Malachi Martin with the Crimson Cross and enshrine him posthumously in the Tower of Trent Hall of Honor.
Martin was born on July 21, 1921 in County Kerry, Ireland and died of a fall on July 27, 1999 in New York City after suffering a stroke a few months before hand which greatly limited his activities. The cause of his death was a head injury. He was pronounced dead at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. He made many converts over his 78 years and many enemies as well. Outspoken as to the reforms of Vatican II and his own Society of Jesus Order - the Church's largest religious order - he chose to walk rather than compromising his principles. Throughout his life he was never one to compromise or accept change. Perhaps this dates back to his early, strict Irish upbringing, perhaps to other factors for not very much is known about his early life since he was very protective of his personal matters and now one can see why with the diatribe and conspiracy to discredit him.
He attended Belvedere College in Dublin and at the age of 18 entered the Jesuit seminary. He received his bachelor's degree in Semitic languages and Oriental history and one in Assyriology from Trinity College, followed by Masters in Philosophy, Theology, Semitic Languages, Archeology and Oriental History obtained from the University of Louvain in Belgium and the University of Oxford as well as the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. On August 15, 1954 - the Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary - he became priest of the Society of Jesus.
This vocation came after venturing into archeology in his earlier years where the lure of history and hieroglyphics of Old Testament times took him on a sojourn to Egypt in the fifties. As he lay on his back in the sand and dust studying the ancient scrawlings in various caverns and caves, searching for clues as to God' chosen people during their exile, the thought kept haunting him, "What am I doing lying in this cave." He realized this work was passive and he wanted to be active. It was a turning point in his life for his major goal, he finally figured out in his mind and heart, was to become "a priest to hear confessions, to say Mass, and to minister to people."
After his ordination he returned to the Mid-East where he became somewhat of an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, publishing over twenty-five articles on Semitic Paleography and his first book The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was the first of sixteen he would publish. This text book - a research book - would be a far cry from the style that would evolve into the John Le Carre style he would exhibit in later books.
In 1958 he was called to Rome where he would work for the next six years. It was here where he established a close relationship with Pope John XXIII and the Secretariat of State Cardinal Augustin Bea. Both charged Father Malachi with extremely sensitive missions of the highest priority and confidentiality. Many believe these missions give validity to his later novels are definitely, as we are finding out, not as fictional as some may have thought. Besides his clandestine mission for the Holy See, he also taught Hebrew, Aramaic, Paleography and Sacred Scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome.
The ironic aspect of his a close friendship with John XXIII and Cardinal Bea was that the two latter principals were the major architects of the ecumenical council which Malachi would turn his back on in 1964. Some believe many of the reforms Father Martin had recommended did not involve the liturgy as much as other areas, mostly government within the Church. When the Church began adopting reforms and many things were introduced that Father Malachi knew were not from the Council Fathers, he became alarmed. But he had also subsequently been silenced by his superior. We find out now that the superior was Fr. O'Keefe who suppressed his own and contributed to the malaise by such actions, compounding it by not denying the rumors and vicious lies until just now.
When the reform began to take place within his own Order, and pressure within to conform or else, Fr. Martin became disillusioned by the changes and the inordinate push for liberation theology which he truly despised. He met with Pope Paul VI and requested a release from his vows as a Jesuit priest in 1964. Paul VI gave him such a dispensation from the vows of poverty and obedience, but Martin remained loyal to his vow of chastity as a priest forever "according to the Order of Melchisedech."
According to an account by Colin B. Donovan of EWTN, we find the quote, "Malachi Martin states, and the Holy See will confirm if asked, that 'In 1965, Mr. Martin received a dispensation from all privileges and obligations deriving from his vows as a Jesuit and from priestly ordination.' [Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, 25 June 1997, Prot. N. 04300/65].
Fr. Martin insisted to the day he died that he had always had the permission of the Pope to say the Mass in private. Although laicized priests are prohibited from performing the sacraments, except in certain cases provided for in Canon Law, there is no way to verify whether he had such an exception until O'Keefe fessed up in early April of this year. That truly is a Hot Issue and needs to be made widely known. As we have contested all along a man should be taken at his word unless there is evidence to the contrary. It reminds us of the verbal permission Pope Pius XII gave to the Servite Fathers to promulgate the book Poem of the Man-God which has been challenged, but then what area of the last Traditional Pope's pontificate hasn't been challenged by the modernists? As Donovan wrote years ago that "there is no way of knowing but if indeed Martin did receive permission from His Holiness, then he is in full accord with Holy Mother Church." We know now without a shadow of doubt that Fr. Martin was in full accord with Holy Mother Church, quite possibly only one of a handful that were, other than the priests and bishops of the Society of St. Pius X and the priests who have remained true to their perpetual celebret granted by Pope St. Pius V in Quo primum.
After receiving his dispensation Martin relocated to Paris but decided a whole new scene was necessary and so, flew across the pond to New York where he would remain for the rest of his life. He set about dedicating his life to writing and supplemented his income with brief stints as a dishwasher and a cab driver, eventually becoming an American citizen. He had already published another book in 1964, entitled The Pilgrim under the pseudonym Michael Serafian on anti-Semitism backlash against the Vatican. Wouldn't Rabbi Schumely Boteach and Abe Foxman love that? In 1970 he got his first breakthrough with his book The Encounter which was the result of his expertise in the study of Judaism, Christianity and Islamism. Six years later he released the first of his best-sellers, Hostage of the Devil which dealt with possession and the exorcism of five Americans. The timing couldn't have been more perfect for the book was published shortly after the film 'The Exorcist' was released. Two years later The Final Conclave hit the best-seller's list and a sign of the type of books yet to come from Malachi Martin, now becoming a famous novelist nationally and internationally. In this book Martin claimed he wrote it to alert the world "of the Marxist influence in the Church that could affect the choice of the next Pope. I see these two great institutions in danger - the Roman Catholic Church and the United States. It was my duty as a Catholic and an American to reveal the secret negotiations now going on. Silence would have been the highest treason...There are 'moles' in the Vatican informing Moscow."
We can see this is true from the Pact of Metz just prior to the opening of the Council to the open schmoozing of Mikael Gorbachev with the Vatican. What do you think Cardinal Mindzenty would say? Martin followed this with The Vatican in 1986 further delving on machinations within the sacred halls of this most august institution, always with a reverence for papal authority but showing how some curial members had gone bad.
Speaking of bad, in 1987 he wrote an expose of his former order, called simply The Jesuits in which he lamented how far the once proud religious order founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola to uphold the faith and protect the Pope had sunk and how it had now become such a proponent of liberation theology and its emphasis on political change. It was an eye-opener to what the Society of Jesus had become and an alarming indication of what is happening in so many institutes of higher learning administered by Jesuits, chief among them Georgetown University which has shown a sharp turn to the left in the past few decades where it is no longer Catholic.
With that novel he showed why he had cut all ties with the Order and rather than staying and being assigned to teaching or a parish, he embraced a new parish after 1964 - the Parish of Best Sellers and Talk Radio via Art Bell, a conservative talk show host who made Father Malachi Martin a frequent guest and which, to the testimony of many, effected countless conversions.
Conversions will not be known except in Heaven, but his books were motivators to toe the line. Such works as 'Hostage to the Devil' woke up many and effected conversions because this was no man of unrestrained imagination, but an inquisitor who had his finger on the pulse of all that was happening and translated it to the common man in ways it could be understood. Yes, it was his way of alerting the world of the dangers and of St. Paul's words in Ephesians 6: 12, "For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood: but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness: against the spirits of wickedness in the high places."
This fact was evident in his novels which painted a picture of a Holy See under siege and sent many in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament remembering Christ's words in Matthew 16: 18, "...and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" and Matthew 28: 20, "...and behold I am with you all days, even unto the consummation of the world."
He received wide acclaim for his novel Keys of This Blood and released his final full novel, a thriller called Windswept House in 1996 which depicted the Church at the brink of the millennium and a slavic Pope. Very similar to Pope John Paul II except in name, Martin illustrated the struggle of Fatima vs. satan and how the anti-Christ stands ready to wrest control of the papacy amid international intrigue, the influence of nations in forming the New World Order and the Church's supposed role in all of this. Nearly five years after his death we can see the prophetic nature of his words. A recent article by James Harder appearing in Insight Magazine confirms this U.N. Faithful Eye Global Religion
For Fr. Martin, Windswept House, which outsold all others, was to be his "last hurrah" for he died less than six months before the new millennium while working on his next book which promised to be the most controversial and detailed work ever, called Primacy: How the Institutional Roman Catholic Church became a Creature of the New World Order. Those who know said it was to be a book about the political scene in the Church today and a forecast of how papal power would have an impact on the world in the third millennium. Whether it will be published posthumously is yet to be determined for few know how far Martin got and who is qualified to complete such a complicated, intense novel that will carry with it the same impact he became famous for.
This Irish American Catholic priest began as an Indiana Jones type of character in real life, evolved into an Ignatius of Loyola, Saint Francis Xavier type and became one of the great modern writers in the genre of Le Carre and John Grisham with the panache of Thomas Costain possessing an insight into the inner workings of the Church and world politics that no one else could convey. His imagination and grasp of real flesh-and-blood "fictional" characters in his novels not only prodded millions to spend hours page-turning, unable to put his novels down, but, much more importantly, tweaked the consciences of countless converts and Catholics who began to take their faith seriously as a result of many revelations revealed in his books. The scope of the impact of his novels? Only Heaven knows the true story. But now, thanks to the confession of Fr. Vincent O'Keefe, SJ, the world knows of Malachi's priestly perseverance and integrity. That will serve many well in making their peace with God for the atrocities against this talented man have greatly impugned his reputation and dignity over these past 40 years. At last vindication! Forgive them, Father Malachi, as we continue to pray for your soul as though it were in Purgatory. If you have reached the Church Triumphant, then intercede to the Almighty Beatific Vision that more will come forward and tell the truth. Truly the truth will set you free.
To this man who had the confidence of popes, cardinals and many in counter intelligence, he took his God-given gifts to weave for the public an inkling of just what was going on behind the scenes in an area previously untouched: Behind the hallowed halls of the Vatican. Now five years after his death most of what he has written has become fact. It is merely a matter of placing the fictitious names with the actual characters, something many have engaged in with some success. Though dispensed from the vow of obedience, he continued to celebrate in private the Traditional Latin Mass until his death in the summer of 1999. And so we honor this valiant warrior of the word, this advance scout of the Revolution who told us ahead of time where the bombs were planted, this man who was a Vatican diplomat, intelligence operative, confidant, a competent, dedicated exorcist, and, above all a priest dedicated to the Truths and Traditions of Holy Mother Church. We present to Fr. Martin posthumously the Tower of Trent Trophy and Crimson Cross and declare this day Father Malachi Martin Day in all of Christendom.
For other charter members honored in this inaugural presentation of the Tower of Trent, see Charter Recipients of the Tower of Trent Trophy
