Malachi Martin—at the end of his life, Father Malachi Martin, also know as Dr. Martin—was an interesting person, to say the least. He was also a lightning rod for controversy, making claims that many felt were unsubstantiated (such as one that a Luciferin ritual had been held at the Vatican). There is even controversy over his priesthood. A Jesuit, he asked to be released from his vows of poverty and obedience in — and some say he was laicized. He moved to New York and worked for a while as a taxi driver and dishwasher, before settling into a career as a writer. Reports say he asked for and received back his faculty to celebrate public Mass again from the Archdiocese of New York ten years before he died (on .

Which brings us to yet another fascinating aspect of this priest who was also a most proficient writer (of fiction, non-fiction, and a combination of both called “faction”).

His nine brothers and sisters included a nun and three priests.

Father Martin, who claimed to have conducted thousands of deliverance and exorcism session, and wrote a bestseller on exorcism called Hostage To the Devil, at the end blamed a demon for causing his death. Or so some who were close to him claimed.

Reported the New York Post: “A ‘possessed’ child is believed to be the culprit behind the death of the Irish priest who inspired “The Exorcist,” a new documentary claims. Malachi Martin went to perform an exorcism on a 4-year-old girl in Connecticut in 1999 – but mysteriously died soon after when he was pushed by an invisible force.

“In the Netflix documentary “Hostage to the Devil,” Martin’s pal and former CIA agent Robert Marrow recalled how when Martin went to greet the girl at her home, the child said to him: “So you’re Malachi Martin, and you think you can help her?”

Did he have an influence on the famous movie, The Exorcist? [Below, a photo of Martin followed by one of the priest in the movie, courtesy the London Mail].

Martin once told the Scotsman newspaper: “Exorcism can be extremely violent. I have seen objects hurled around rooms by the powers of evil. I have smelt the breath of Satan and heard the demons’ voices – cold, scratchy, dead voices carrying messages of hatred.”

Reported Bishop Accountability: “Some Vatican insiders insisted that Fr. Martin had an axe to grind, while others attempted to destroy his credibility with stories of immoral behavior and illicit affairs with the wives of friends. Towards the end of his life, despite a liberal sojourn when he worked for Cardinal Bea during the time of the Council, Father Martin maintained maintained that the Catholic Church was in apostasy.”

Wrote conservative writer Rod Drehrer, “In new ‘Exorcist Files’ episode, Father Carlos Martins [an exorcist from Canada] warned strongly against the work of Malachi Martin (author of ‘Hostage To The Devil’), saying he was a self-aggrandizing fraud who, despite Martin’s claim, had been laicized by the Vatican. But I think he’s right. I was a huge fan of Malachi Martin’s … until I met him, in the early 1990s. He struck me as a self-dramatizing manipulator. It shocked me. And he was lying about his clerical status. That’s impossible to overlook.”

One obituary described Martin as survive by a woman described as his “companion.”

Harsh words?

But accurate?

We’ll leave that for your determination. He certainly stood for orthodoxy and fought to recover what he saw as lost traditions after Vatican Two.

A lightning rod for sure–like all humans, with both great attributes and, so it is claimed, failings.