Malachi Martin Book

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I need some help with this. There is a book called Hostage to the Devil by a man that claims to be a priest. I want to konw if he was in good standing with the Church or not. I have heard both.

Matt
 
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matthewstivison:
I need some help with this. There is a book called Hostage to the Devil by a man that claims to be a priest. I want to konw if he was in good standing with the Church or not. I have heard both.

Matt
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I read that book years ago as a college student. It was a very powerful book and it certainly strengthened my faith. It came out around the time of the Exorcist movie. And there was alot of interest in the subject of possession because of the movie. He presented 5 case studies. There is some speculation that he was an excorcist. I don’t know. At the end of the book he discussed the Church’s doctrine of free will and how that plays a role in this subject. He was a former Jesuit scholar. Why former? I don’t really know. His book about the order (The Jesuits) wasn’t flattering. The order was founded by St. Ignatius to be a kind of papal right arm, and it was his contention in the book that they developed into more of the opposite. But it was clear to me, from also reading this book, that he was loyal to the Pope and deplored the disloyalty that he found within the contemporary order.
 
If you go to the Apologetics Forum and do a search on Malachi Martin, you can find a host of information!! Hope that helps!
 
“Hostage to the Devil” was one of Malachi Martin’s better books. I enjoyed it because the reality of the devil and his actions in the world are seldom talked about. Another book of his, “The Jesuits,” was very critical and could appeal to self-styled “orthodox Catholics”. I would not recommend it to anyone. He got many many things wrong and claimed to have first hand knowledge of things the he could not have possible known.
 
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matthewstivison:
I need some help with this. There is a book called Hostage to the Devil by a man that claims to be a priest. I want to konw if he was in good standing with the Church or not. I have heard both.

Matt
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There are approximately 16 books authored by Malachi Martin; half are non-fiction i.e, Hostage to the Devil, Dead Sea Scrolls, The Jesuits, Rich Church Poor Church etc. and the other half are roman a clefs, classified as fiction.

His book dealing with possession, (Hostage) is considered one of the landmarks in the field. Fr Martin was a man of wide interests and a fine education.

Bachelor’s degree in Semitic languages and Oriental history with parallel studies in Assyriology at Trinity College. Held degrees in Philosophy, Theology, Semitic Languages, Archeology and Oriental History from the University of Louvain, Belgium. In Rome he was also Professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute of the Vatican, and taught Hebrew, Aramaic, Paleography and Scripture.

Right hand man to Cardinal Bea and worked closely with him particularly involved with Nostra Aetate.

The book the Jesuits is an excellent one as are most of his works.

As the OP commented, do an advanced search on his name and there are a wide variety of threads and/or discussions which will be of interest.

And yes, he was a priest all of his life.
 
Two other books of interest are ‘Keys’ and ‘Windswept House’.

‘Keys’ is very dated now as it deals with Gorbachov and JPII. But many of historical references are excellent, especially regarding Antonio Gramsi’s communism. It really opened my eyes at the time- to the Church and geopolitics.

‘Windswept House’ was supposodly fictional with some basis in real people/events. This was before the scandals and when I read it (right after it came out in late 90’s I think), I wondered about his credibility (Malachi Martin’s) as I couldn’t believe some of the priests/cardinals could be as bad as portrayed.

Turns out, mainly pertaining to the homosexual references, he was chilling right.

In my research, he seemed like a faithful Catholic- but very orthodox- trying to bring attention to abuses, even evil, in the Church and society.

But I never did find out why he wasn’t a ‘practicing’ priest.
 
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matthewstivison:
I need some help with this. There is a book called Hostage to the Devil by a man that claims to be a priest. I want to konw if he was in good standing with the Church or not. I have heard both.

Matt
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I own two of his novels. “Vatican” is a very thinly veiled description of the Church from about 1945 through 1985. Many of his “fictional characters” are real people with only slightly disguised names. Thankfully, the last 20 years have been far more positive for the Church than he predicted in the book.

I also have his historical novel on the life of King David. To call it awful would be an understatement of truly Biblical proportions!

I have not read any of his non-fiction. I know that even some conservative Catholics call the legitimacy of some of his material into question.
 
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