July 23, 1921 - July 27, 1999

By Father Charles Fiore

Father Malachi Brendan Martin, a Roman Catholic priest, widely renowned theologian and bestselling author, died in New York City on Tuesday, July 27, 1999 following a stroke. Father Martin was born in Kerry, Ireland July 23, 1921. He was educated at Belvedere College and entered the Society of Jesus in 1939. He studied at the National University, taking a bachelor's degree in Semitic languages and Oriental history with parallel studies in Assyriology at Trinity College. He held degrees in Philosophy, Theology, Archeology and Oriental history from the university of Louvain, Belgium.

Father Martin was ordained on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1954. He specialized in inter-testamentary studies and knowledge of Jesus as transmitted in Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and at Oxford University. Additional subjects of intense study for him during his formal education included rational psychology, experimental psychology, physics, and anthropology.

Father Martin was known for his remarkable work on the Dead Sea Scrolls and published some two dozen articles on Semitic paleography in learned journals. The first of his 16 books was the two-volume work, The Scribal Characters of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

From 1958 until 1964 Malachi Martin served in Rome where he was a close associate of, and carried out many sensitive missions for the renowned Jesuit Cardinal Augustin Bea and Pope John VI. While in Rome he was also Professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute of the Vatican, where he taught Hebrew, Aramaic, Paleography, and Scripture.

In 1964, after twenty-five years as a Jesuit, Father Martin was released from his vows of poverty and obedience at his own request by Paul VI. Following a brief stay in Paris, he moved to New York, where until his final illness and death, he continued his apostolic service to what became a vast and loyal national and international "congregation" of both Catholics and non-Catholics. He amassed a decades-long record of critical and commercial success as the author of sixteen bestselling books, many of which have defied trends and fads to remain in print for as many as twenty years or more. He wrote articles and pamphlets, and recorded audio tapes, and was widely sought by television and radio as an authoritative commentator on Vatican affairs. Considered "one of the ten best media guests in the country," Father Martin proved himself without equal in what the Washington Post characterized as "uncanny accuracy" with which he not only reported, but predicted the hidden geopolitics of the Vatican and its complex global dealings with governments and nations. Among his legacies is a decades-long public record of extraordinary understanding of the meaning and implications of events - a record of predicting the unthinkable and getting it right every time; of foretelling events over the last thirty years that seemed unbelievable but came to pass. These events in the end changed the lives of generations of men and women in every quarter of the world. Among Malachi Martin's most famous books are Hostage to the Devil. The Final Conclave, Vatican, The Jesuits, and The Keys of This Blood. Windswept House: A Vatican Novel is widely read as a candid profile of the troubled state of the Roman Catholic Church today. The work is seen as a blueprint for the near future of the Church as the pontificate of John Paul II comes to an end.

At his death, Father Martin was at work on what he said would be his most controversial and important book. Primacy: How the Institutional Roman Catholic Church became a Creature of The New World Order was to deal with power and the papacy. This work was to analyze the revolutionary shift in the ancient dogma of primacy that lies at the heart of what many see as the first breakdown of the papal power in two millennia. It was to be a book of predictions about papal power and the world in the first decades of the new millennium.

The many reviews of Malachi Martin's books over the years stand as eloquent testimony to his importance as an author, his talent and candor, his courage and impact.

"No spiritual journey is complete without a Vatican page-turner by Malachi Martin," - Forbes. "In biblical times they would have called him a prophet." The Dallas Morning News. "He fetches Christianity onto the stage of history," - The New York Times. "It is to Martin's credit that his real-life 'fictional' Cardinals have flesh, bone and blood. And sometimes the heart of a south Chicago ward heeler." - Sacramento Bee. "Whether you are a Christian or Muslim or whatever, you will find that the influence of the Vatican can affect your own life." - The Houston Chronicle "The battle that concerns Martin is the fundamental survival of the belief in God, and the struggle that supersedes our individual faiths is the one between us and those who would destroy all faiths." - Alan Caruba in The Jewish Future.

Father Martin is survived by family members in Ireland.

Reprinted here from the AfterDark Newsletter.

Books By Fr. Malachi Martin

Windswept House: A Vatican Novel

Hostage to the Devil: The Possession and Exorcism of Five Americans

The Jesuits: The Society of Jesus and the Betrayal of the Roman Catholic Church

The Keys of This Blood: The Struggle for World Dominion Between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Capitalist West