Malachi Martin film from Causeway pictures coming soon (trailer)

[StrictCatholicGirl]

Okay, thanks!!

[Tim]

In fact after much intrigue and caluminy the Jesuits fessed up that he had never been laicized as many contended. Paul VI released him from the vows but he remained a priest as Walty said.

tim

[Tim]

I've held this back for some time but I want to share it now that I see what year Fr.Martin was ordained. I always thought the source for this information was well a tabloid given to reports of pistoleros and desperados prone to extreme violence. In the seventies I tried to teach my self Spanish by reading La Raza, brought by the Mexicans guys at work. It was the enquirer of blood lust. It had Horrifying pictures of people killed. It taught me a few words which were handy in the machine shop with folks that spoke as little English as I spoke Spanish. Fast forward to the internet and I no longer read the La Raza for years but stumbled on it on line, thanks to Lou Dobbs. They are involved with the reconquistadores movement. I've gone to far sideways, now,  so, I saw an article on there which said they had evidence that Fr. Martin was the exorcist that the movie of the same name is based on. They showed no proof but made that bold assertion. I thought how coincidental Blatty use Marin and it was Martin. Blatty said at that time that Von Sydow couldn't get the accent right and he allowed him to speak his natural accented English. If he was ordained in '43 he'd be about old enough to do it. Very curious.

tim 

[Walty]

Tim, I've beent thinking the same thing for awhile now.  The more I find out about Fr. Martin, the more sold I was on the idea that Von Sydow was playing him, even in the second film where he plays something of an archeologist, which fits Fr. Martin's bill perfectly.  We see Von Sydow in the Middle East somewhere (or perhaps the Sahara).  Fr. Martin spent much time there studying the Dead Sea Scrolls.

[Tim]

Walty, have you seen the prequel ? If you do it'll convince you more, of course Fr. is having the obligatory crisis of faith in the movie. We'd need a bit of coroboration that Fr. Martin was here in Chicago at that time. According to O'Hallarahan (sp?) said in a documentary that the final phase was at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelien Illinois. O'Hallarahan said he was the seminarian that was witness, and it frightened him. He went on to say never again.

tim

[Walty]

I really think that we're right here, Tim.  I wish there was a way to prove it.  The author of the novel the movie is based upon is still alive isn't he?  I wonder if he'd be able to shed some light on the matter.

[salus]

The priest could not have been Father Malachi Martin who wasn't even a Jesuit when the real exorcism took place in the 1940s at the Alexian Hospital in St. Louis. The girl Reagan in the film was actually a real boy who today is in his 70s living in Maryland. William Peter Blatty's book is a fictionalized account of a real event, i believe i read a book with the real story and the real names of the priests involved and none was Father Martin.

[Walty]

The novel is based on a real event, but I think it took a lot of liberalities.  I think that the novel is only loosely based upon that one particular exorcism.

[Tim]

The priest I mentioed before had a documentary on the exorcism, and he was at the final phase in Mundelien Illinois as a seminarian. Yes it was a boy and not a girl. Fr. Martin was ordained in "43 which make a '47 exorcism possible. I ain't saying he was the exorcist, but it is possible and he is old enough.

tim

[Gerard]

The priest I mentioed before had a documentary on the exorcism, and he was at the final phase in Mundelien Illinois as a seminarian. Yes it was a boy and not a girl. Fr. Martin was ordained in "43 which make a '47 exorcism possible. I ain't saying he was the exorcist, but it is possible and he is old enough.

tim

I think there are a couple of typos in the documentary.  Fr. Martin was ordained in 1954.  He entered the Jesuits in 1939 was trained for  2 years as a novice and 15 years as a "formed scholastic" which is why he earned so many doctorates.  I remember Fr. Martin saying in an interview, "They trained me for 17 years before I could even preach a sermon."

Fr. Martin's first exorcism was in the 1950s in Cairo, it was a possessed Muslim boy and Fr. Martin was called to fill in for the assistant who had passed out.  He said, "There was simply no one else available."

(This info could plausibly have been used in the two versions of the prequel that were brought out a few years back. )

The priest who performed the exorcism in the 1940s was Fr. Joseph Bowdern assisted by Fr. William Bishop who kept a diary of the events. The diary and an account are in the book "Possessed" by Thomas Allen (it's just straight reporting) 

The similarities between Fr. Martin and the fictional Fr. Marin are pretty interesting.  There is debate about whether Fr. Martin or Tielhard de Chardin are the inspiration for the "archealogist" angle.  Fr. Martin was definitely the more orthodox compared to Tielhard.