Quote from: Elizabeth

So you mean to say if nobody claimed he made an abjuration he could not have possibly done so?  It could not have happened because no one has come forward?   What if a priest had been trained to never defend himself, for example?

That was the way my Irish Catholic parents were formed. (They both attended the same elementary school.)   Nobody was allowed to defend himself or allow anyone else to do so.  (I have no idea if that was an error, but I know it was the cultural norm -for lack of another term-the same as never breathing a word against a priest or nun, no matter what.

He wouldn't have been defending himself.  He would have been condemning himself, as he had behaved in the past, and promising to be faithful in future.  Just as in the confessional, we accuse ourselves and pledge repentance.  He had a strict duty to do this publicly, for many reasons including to repair as far as he could the scandal of his actions, and also to become a member of the Church again, which is a visible society of those who outwardly profess the faith.

He had publicly broken his baptismal vows and he needed to perform a public act, just as our baptismal vows are a public act, in order to re-establish his status as a believer.  He had committed public perjury by breaking those solemn vows of baptism; he had to regain his credibility as a Christian.

None of his friends claim that he repented because none of them will admit he fell.  That applies to his work on behalf of non-Christians at the Council, his adultery, his heretical books, his heretical admissions to various parties, etc.  Their standard reaction to all of these proven facts is to deny them and try and discredit the proofs.  But this is no longer possible.

And you are not required to think of him as a priest.  He was laicised in 1965, wore only lay clothes for decades, and publicly apostatised.  Think of him as like John Courtney Murray but immeasurably worse because more flagrant.

Did it ever occur to you that he didn't want to answer erroneous claims every five minutes from someone? Mr. Kennedy explains why Father Martin told him to WAIT until after he was dead to publish his bio BECAUSE he didn't want to spend "his twilight years" having to deal with all these INSANE accusations and refutations about what his life entailed. I'm sure if you were in the public eye, you would want that same courtesy. He was being attacked by multiple people on multiple fronts. Was he to answer every one of these supposed infractions with all of his time? NO ONE can be expected to do that.

I do remember that he answered two crazy women that wrote that he supposedly endorsed Medjigorge (or however you spell it), and he called it outright and in no uncertain terms, "A DEMONIC HOAX."

There have been very many traditional Catholics that were confused about what was going on, and how to understand the situation we are in. At one time, Father Martin believed that everyone should be in union with the hierarchy no matter what. You will not give him the same leeway that you would give every other traditional Catholic?

Since you're so judgmental towards Father Martin, I wonder what you're thoughts are on Archbishop Lefevbre....

Please enlighten me (in another thread, please.)

Quote from: parentsfortruth

...these INSANE accusations...

The i word is popular lately isn't it?

It was also popular in the Papal Encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII.

Evidently, there are multiple people using the same tactic against Father Martin.

Please don't hit me. I did a google search and found this when looking for what I could find about the so-called "Wilson diaries."

"Pure junk. The author omits any information that vindicates Fr. Martin's contentions and gives undue weight to critics of Fr. Martin. Then he demands that people produce evidence to prove him wrong, yet he would ban anyone who did.

(Robt. Blair Kaiser's book "Clerical error" where he accuses Fr. Martin of wanting him sɛҳuąƖly. Kaiser's evidence? Kaiser claims had a dream where Fr. Martin was making advances on him. )

(eg. Edmund Wilson's diaries in the 1960's are selectively edited where Fr. Martin explains that he is still being harassed by "enemies of the faith" within the Jesuit order,)

(eg. interviews with Fr. James Lebar where Fr. Lebar credits Fr. Martin with helping him learn the ropes on Exorcism are ignored. with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN as a matter of fact. )

The author also tends to cite authors he hasn't actually read.
(eg. Michael Cuneo's interview with Fr. Martin in American Exorcism.)

In fact, the author hasn't even read Fr. Martin's books as far as I can tell and as was admitted by the author at the time of his attacks.

People who actually knew Fr. Martin were not considered reliable sources (unless they were intent on trashing him) It's ridiculous.

The brilliant and gentle Dr. David Allen White of the U.S. Naval Academy was broomed for trying to defend his friend.

And I can go on and on..."

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

SGG is using the same tactics against Father Martin as people are on other fora like "Angelqueen." Same tactics as "Father Cekada" on "Fisheaters."

I'm not slamming my head into a brick wall anymore trying to convince these people that they're incorrect.

Just so you're aware....

Calumny is a sin. You might want to look it up. So goes the advice again: Why don't you just shut your trap and pray for him?

Calumny:

In its more commonly accepted signification it means the unjust damaging of the good name of another by imputing to him a crime or fault of which he is not guilty.


For the sake of your immortal soul, I pray that what you're saying about Father Martin being an adulterer (or even REPEATING SUCH A THING) is true, because if it's not, I wouldn't want to be you.

By the name SGG, I don't doubt that he might be a disciple of this "Father" Cekada.

(By the name)  :rolleyes: you don't doubt that he might be.  :scratchchin:

Anyway, some of us have digressed. Maybe the thead will return to Malachi sometime soon.

Quote from: GertrudetheGreat

That's good, thank you.  Now, are you going to answer the question above?

No, you're not going to answer that question, because you can't without changing your position.  

Was he a public heretic until at least 1975?  Yes, obviously, indisputably.  I've given you extracts from his book, Jesus Now.  I could give you much worse extracts, but I won't, because I could not bring myself to publish them, for any reason.

For those familiar with the worst material in the тαℓмυd about Our Lord and His Blessed Mother, Martin retails it all and in particularly degrading language.  

So here you are "citing proof" from an obviously delusional group of people know as "The Kaisers" and then you come back at me because I cite someone who actually knew Father Martin and wrote something in his defense after speaking with him at length many times.

So now the Kaisers and their dogmatic theology professor priest friend are a "group of people known as 'The Kaisers'".  And Wilson is too?

And the fact that Martin asked for and received laicisation at the same time that his adultery was alleged by his adulteress partner, is insignificant?  

Did the priest write that letter to harm Martin?  No.  He wrote it in support of an annulment application by Mrs. Kaiser.  Martin was not a conservative or a trad at the time, he was an OPEN heretic, so open that he says other Jesuits feared to associate with him.  HE ADMITTED THIS IN AN INTERVIEW LATER, as I already quoted earlier.  Why would that priest slander Martin then?  It certainly wasn't to stop the hero of tradition from successfully fighting the heretics, was it?  No.  Nor was it intended for publication.  It was a private letter for a court, not an article or anything destined for distribution.

Rosenberg: Even though they didn’t believe in the full divinity of Jesus either, and were you were questioning that, and questioning….

Martin:  I was not… I was not in question to it. I was asking question after question about everything.

Rosenberg: Yeah.

Martin: About everything.

Rosenberg: And it was on that basis that you left. As I’ve known you for many years..

Martin: Yes.

Was Wilson out to get Martin?  No, as when confronted by Wilson's comments by Rosenberg he just calmly replied that what Wilson described was true, and explained it further.

Here is what Wilson had written, to which Rosenberg referred:

The three things that a Catholic priest has to accept were the divinity of Jesus, the resurrection of the body, and the immortality of the soul. If your colleagues in the priesthood began to be aware that you were entertaining doubts, they avoided and eventually ostracized you. They themselves might be loyal to their faith only by observing its ritual, and keeping its creed in a shut-off compartment rather like the doublethink of Orwell.  They might interest themselves in other things, but they had always in their thoughts, this permanently paralyzed area.

So these secret heretics avoided Martin because he was too openly heretical.  That is Martin's view, not some slander, which he himself confirmed.

Do you not accept that this was the case?  On what possible basis can you deny it?

Then you say that he made up stuff. Well, what did he make up?

Martin made everything up which interests traditional Catholics.  I listed a few samples pages back.  I was not referring to Fr. Fiore when I said that Martin made things up.  Fiore was clearly a dupe, as you are, sadly.

Asking me why I believe this guy over an obvious psychopath like Kaiser, is like asking me why I would believe Padre Pio over Sun Yan Moon.

But I'm not asking you to believe Kaiser.  I'm suggesting you look at all of the evidence then make a judgement.

If he were a public heretic as you claim, then why were his exorcisms effective? You've still refused to answer that question. Someone in the state of mortal sin cannot effectively offer an exorcism because the devil still has them in his grip, wouldn't you agree?

I see no evidence that he ever performed an exorcism, but if he did and it appeared effective, that would not prove anything.  Signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the Elect.

Dangerous books? "Hostage to the Devil" was not "dangerous" as you describe. It was no "Dante's Inferno," but if you read it, it gets the point across clearly. "Keys to this Blood" was a very good book, as was "Windswept House."

This is the real problem.  Anybody who judges those books to be anything but dangerous is lacking catechetical formation.  What do you know about exorcism other than what you learned from Martin?  He invented the whole thing, and got it wrong, and said ridiculous and even heterodox things, especially his Rocky Balboa Exorcist vs The Devil contest of wills garbage, in which the exorcist risks his soul for the possessed victim.  It's all rubbish, and dangerous rubbish.

If he were really an adulterer (as the avowed lunatic Kaiser claims), then why did this nutjob wait until after Father Martin was DEAD like a coward and a liar, to put out these outlandish lies?

I'd say because he was afraid of what Martin would do, since he had already learned how dangerous the man was in 1965.  And I have no brief for Kaiser, he was a liberal heretic himself and is now an apostate.  No doubt he is cowardly.  But I am not relying on his testimony anyway, I see it only as confirmatory of the letter in support of Mrs Kaiser, which is an official testimony by an eyewitness.

You think I'm out to "get" Martin and you wonder why.  I am motivated by those books he wrote, the later ones which trads find so fascinating.  They are dangerous.  If he had no influence, I'd not bother saying anything about him.  And I think that everybody knows what the real issue is, and that's why they are so heated in their defence of this scoundrel.  They like his later books (the only ones they know exist, actually).

The defences of Martin all follow the same lines.  Any evidence against him is ascribed to evil men, none of it is discussed in detail but rather it dismissed as "selective quotation" or smeared as the product of insanity, and the testimonies of other men who have no evidence except Martin's own testimony are cited as proof of Martin's honesty and goodness.  

Quote from: parentsfortruth

By the name SGG, I don't doubt that he might be a disciple of this "Father" Cekada.

Actually, Gertrude claims to be a sedevacantist SSPXer.

Yes, I am.

The name was because I joined on the feast of St. Gertrude the Great (or maybe the day after, I can't recall) but that's why I chose it.  It never occurred to me that others might connect it with the Dolan/Cekada centre, although it's obvious in hindsight. It was the occasion of a comedic and tragic story.  I joined to correct some arguments for sedevacantism that were wrong.  I hate bad arguments for sedevacantism.  After a few backs-and-forths with someone or other two of those disagreeing with me caved in and accepted what I was writing.  I was amazed, a virtually unique event on a Web forum.  I congratulated at least one of them on being so manly as to admit that he was wrong, and thought nothing more of it.  Then I got a couple of PMs asking if I was Fr. Cekada or one of his parishioners and the penny dropped.  I suppose that was the reason I made headway, giving the truth, when it usually falls on deaf ears.  I can see the humour in it, but it's also sad.  

Don't ever let anybody tell you that the doctrine of Vatican II - that the truth will win by its own merits - is true.  It isn't true, as the Internet has proved, again and again, as if the whole of human history hadn't left us in any doubt.

You think I'm out to "get" Martin and you wonder why.  I am motivated by those books he wrote, the later ones which trads find so fascinating.  They are dangerous.  If he had no influence, I'd not bother saying anything about him.  And I think that everybody knows what the real issue is, and that's why they are so heated in their defence of this scoundrel.  They like his later books (the only ones they know exist, actually).

Some of his followers just love his interviews and recordings too, wherein Martin claims to let them in on some things that had previously been secret.

His earlier books were dangerous too, obviously - maybe not so much to trads who know their faith, but the filth is an still an unwelcome entry into the mind and can be dangerous.

In his books, even his later books, targeted at an audience much larger than Catholics (sold in airports for discerning readers), Martin portrays a Church that has defected. He scandalises many who are not of the Faith, as well as those who have it. The sensationalism and purported revelations of previously esotoric knowledge reminds me of the The Da Vinci Code.

I was reading an interesting book today and these passage stood off the page like they were illuminated with neon.  They are a concise and accurate description of the theology of Malachi Martin, using almost exactly his words (although it was written years before he got going).

There is yet another form of the anticlerical spirit, one which stands at the opposite pole to that which marks those whose being is wholly in the world. It is to be seen in the immemorially recurrent tendency of men wholly to reject all that is institutional, all that is bodily or partakes of organization. The thing manifests itself in a sort of spiritual resentment, which envisages redemption in a mystical liberation from the material. How could such a conception find any use for the Church as an organization or for the priests who are her official expositors? Like the refrain of some melancholy ballad, the tragedy of this gnosis marches alongside of every century of our history and is a formative factor even to-day. Even Christians bear the mark of it, and particularly those who have a powerful urge towards the interior life. They dream of a ‘Johannine age’, of a ‘Christianity of the spirit’, of a ‘Church of Love’ in which ideal personalities serve as priests, nor do they notice how they have fallen into heresy at the expense of the one complete truth, and are living in consequence a withered and starved life. ‘Why is this? It is because they lack the power—  perhaps they lack the love to recognize and affirm this dual polarity of matter and spirit.

True we must admit that it is in the material that the danger lies, the danger being that the material may predominate, and indeed we humans seem somehow to have a special aptitude for turning the living organism into a dead organization. The necessity never ceases for the spirit, now blowing gently and now tempest, to bring its fiery and renewing warmth to bear, saving the norms and forms of the material from hardening into crusted deadness and warming our inmost being with its glow.  But the body must be there as well as the spirit—the Church must be visible, the sacraments must have their quality of signs, and the priest, too, must have his humanity, for we are both body and soul, a unity of body and soul. It is only in thought that we can sever the two; in life they are one. How much idealism must, therefore, run to waste, like so much sand, when men regard as a defect what is in reality a necessity for their completeness?


The Priest in the World, by Josef Sellmair, pp. 4,5, Newman Press, 1954.  Italics in the original.