-- FR. MALACHI MARTIN DEAD AT 78
--
AUTHOR
OF 16 BOOKS MOURNED BY COUNTLESS FRIENDS, ASSOCIATES, READERS Father
Malachi Brendan Martin, Roman Catholic priest,
widely renowned theologian and bestselling author of 16 books, died in New
York City on Tuesday, July 27, 1999, following a stroke. Father
Martin was born in Kerry, Ireland on July 23. 1921. He was educated at
Belvedere College, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1939. He studied at
the National University where he took a bachelor's degree in Semitic
languages and Oriental history with parallel studies in Assyriology at
Trinity College. He held degrees in Philosophy, Theology, Semitic Languages,
Archeology and Oriental History from the University of Louvain, Belgium. He
was ordained to the priesthood on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15,
1954. Father
Martin did parallel studies at Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and at Oxford
University, specializing in intertestamentary studies and knowledge of Jesus
as transmitted in Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts. Additional subjects of
intense study for him during his formal education included rational
psychology, experimental psychology, physics and anthropology. He did
early and seminal 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 Character 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 for Pope John XXIII. While in
Rome he was also Professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute of the
Vatican, where he taught Hebrew, Aramaic, Paleography and Scripture. After
twenty-five years as a Jesuit, Father Martin was released, at his own request
by Paul VI from his vows of poverty and obedience in 1964. Following
a brief stay in Paris, he moved to New York, where until his final illness
and death, he continued his apostolic service as a priest to what became a
vast and loyal national and international "congregation" of 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 ten or even twenty years
or more. He wrote
many articles and pamphlets, and recorded many audio tapes, and was widely
sought after on television and radio as an authoritative commentator on
Vatican affairs, and "one of the ten best media guests in the
country." Father
Martin proved himself without equal in what The Washington Post called his
"uncanny accuracy" with which he not only reported but predicted
the hidden, inside 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 at first, but that 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. His most recently
published book, Windswept House: A Vatican Novel is widely read as a candid
profile of the troubled state of the Roman Catholic Church today, and as a
blueprint for its near future as the pontificate of John Paul II nears its
end. At his
death, Father Martin was at work on what he said would be his most
controversial and important book. Entitled Primacy: How the Institutional
Roman Catholic Church became a Creature of the New World Order, it was to
deal with power and the papacy, and analyzed the revolutionary shift in the
ancient dogma of primacy that lies at the heart of what many now see as the
first breakdown of papal power in two millennia. It was to be a book about
the Vatican's political landscape as we approach a new pontificate, and as a
book of predictions about papal power and the world in the first decades of
the new millennium. The many
reviews of Malachi Martin Is 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," said Forbes. "In biblical times they would have
called film a prophet, " said The Dallas Morning News. "He fetches
Christianity onto the stage of history," wrote The New York Times. "It
is to Martin's credit," wrote the Sacramento Bee,"that his
real-live 'fictional' Cardinals have flesh, bone and blood. And sometimes the
heart of a South Chicago ward heeler. " From The Houston Chronicle:
"Whether you are Christian or Muslim or whatever, you will find that the
influence of the Vatican can af fect your own life. " And from Alan
Caruba in The Jewish Future: "The battle that concerns Martin is the
fundamental survival of belief in God, and the struggle that supercedes our
individual faiths is the one between us and those who would destroy all
faiths." Father
Malachi Martin is survived by family members in Ireland. - Fr. Charles Fiore To read more on Fr. Malachi
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