Malachi Martin passed away in 1999, with his legacy wrapped in either obscurity and skepticism. Perhaps the most balanced public appraisal of Malachi Martin’s impact on modern traditional Catholicism was handled by Dr. Taylor Marshall and Timothy Gordon:

But a quick perusal of the comments section for this video will tell you that the deep love and affection for Martin runs deep. Even though this honest assessment of Martin’s legacy was given by two Catholic youtubers who are themselves openly skeptical of Vatican 2, that did not stop traditionalists from taking umbrage with this episode:

“Father Malachi Martin is a giant among men. Anyone should be honored to have known him.” (102 likes)

“The church is in eclipse, can you not see for yourself? Malachi Martin was 100% accurate.” (206 likes)

“Have to agree with the vast majority of the comments here, you guys did an awful job at addressing this. Definitely not a source for anybody looking seriously into Malachi Martin’s life or anything mentioned within, for that matter.” (49 likes)

As we’ve covered earlier, the reason the Malachi Martin Mythos is so pervasive is that many Catholics who feel scandalized by the liberal shift that coincided with Vatican 2 need a narrative, a story to help explain how the Catholic Church shifted from traditional piety to liberal largesse.

Plummeting Attendances and Broken Legs

Take for example the 2016 documentary “Hostage to the Devil, The True Story of America’s Most Notorious Exorcist”. It starts with Father Eugene O’Neil, a traditional priest from Ireland who paints a rosy picture of American Catholicism that in the 1950s. The Church was growing, people were coming into formation, parishes were popping up everywhere. And then…..VATICAN 2! V2 took America off of the narrow path and ushered in a mass apostasy that the Church is still reeling from all these years later.

Except Father O’Neill provides nothing in the way of studies or statistics to bolster this point. By all measures mass attendance AND priestly formations had peaked in the 1950s and were trending down before the 1960s and Vatican 2. This downtrend seems to be more associated with the suburbanization of traditional urban Catholic communities. The pockets of piety evaporated as Catholics migrated out of the big city and into suburbia.

The decline of mass attendance and priestly formations had nothing to do with Vatican 2. It was trending down due to social migration well before the 1960s.

But if you insist that Vatican 2 was the real culprit and you accept Father O’Neil’s revisionist history, then you are primed to accept everything else this documentary throws at you, evidence be damned!

Some of the more interesting claims in this documentary:

• According to Martin’s literary agent, Lisa Karph, one of the reasons Martin left the Vatican in 1964 was because Pope John XXIII advised him to “get out of town or you’ll become another fat cardinal with a mistress”.

• Physical confrontations during exorcisms were apparently a common threat. Martin sustained a cut on his head after a demon threw a foot stool at him.

• At a conference with Lorraine Walker (famous paranormal investigator) he claims how exorcism had cost him “...2 broken legs, almost broken kneecaps…it’s endangered my life several times.”

• William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist, required Martin to produce proof that he was an exorcist. Martin apparently got Pope Paul VI to send a letter confirming Martin’s exorcist status.

We’ve previously covered Martin’s inexplicable transition from Dead Sea Scroll linguist to Exorcist. His exorcism credentials were never demonstrated to anyone, just claims that his fans took at face value. The letter from Pope Paul VI confirming Martin’s status as a “secularized” priest authorized to conduct exorcisms has never been seen by anyone. And to this day no one has ever seen or heard the tapes that Martin claimed recorded each of the exorcisms he covered in his 1976 book, “Hostage to the Devil”. No tapes, and no priests or witnesses to these supposed exorcisms have ever come forward to claim their authenticity. Not to mention Martin’s concept of “Perfect Possession”, where someone is so possessed that that they can’t be exorcised, is another novelty with no basis in traditional exorcism teaching.

They’re STILL Writing About Him

The Malachi Martin Mythos continues to live on! Robert Marro, one of the producers of the “Hostage to the Devil” documentary and a personal friend of Martin, gives more details about Martin’s Vatican intelligence work behind the Iron Curtain in his 2025 book “Malachi Martin: In the Shadows of the Vatican”. Apparently Martin wasn’t just a Jesuit priest, Pope Pius XII made him a bishop in order to ordain underground priests and bishops in Soviet Russia!

As with all the other extraordinary claims about Martin, nothing is provided in the way of evidence. Yet the reviews for this work are not negative at all.

“I am so grateful to Robert Marro for sharing so much about his friend, the “controversial” and well-loved Malachi Martin. This book opened my eyes to the many truths shielded from the faithful. It is a page-turner and, unfortunately, contains (what I personally believe) to be facts about the infiltration of evil into the Catholic Church.”

“A book every Catholic must read! Beautifully and authentically written - from the heart, giving us indepth insight into who Fr. Malachi Martin was. How strong his Catholic Faith and His love for Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Blessed Mother and Holy Mother Church. The fact he was made a Cardinal made my heart very happy - he was truly a good and faithful servant to the end.”

“This Great Work of Mr. Morro’s is so needed to familiarize Catholics of All ages with The Great Rev. Dr. Malachi Martin+ and correct and hopefully, at last dispel all the slanderous lies and accusations leveled against him by his enemies and the enemies of The Church! Rest In Eternal Peace+ Fr. Martin 🙏🏻”

It makes you wonder; why doesn’t Malachi Martin literature ever garner any critical reviews?

You Either Love Him Or…Ignore Him

You can’t blame your average Catholic for not going down the Malachi Martin rabbit hole. There’s so much conflicting information about him that it’s challenging to know who it is you’re even criticizing. This leaves 2 types of Martin inquisitors:

1. Loyal, unquestioning fans

2. No bro see Malachi Martin was actually a Mossad agent helping Israel subvert the Catholic Church with….

You either get unwavering supporters or crazy conspiracy theorists. There is no in between. So why even bother? Why try to demonstrate that Malachi Martin is not to be trusted?

Because his Mythos helps perpetuate the larger myth that Vatican 2 ushered apostasy into the Church. If you’re a faithful Catholic who is convinced that the Church has forsaken her calling, then you have 2 options:

• Sedevacantism

• SSPX

Both of which leads you out of communion with the Church, outside of the body of Christ.

With the SSPX 2026 bishop consecrations in defiance of Rome’s warning of schism many traditional Catholics are in real danger of being excommunicated from the Church. The SSPX conducts roughly 40% - 45% of Traditional Latin Masses worldwide. This is a sizeable portion of devout Catholics, many of whom are convinced that the SPPX’s adherence to the Traditional Latin Mass, their public skepticism of the orthodoxy of Vatican 2 and their parallel hierarchy are all necessary in order to avoid the contamination of the “post conciliar church”.

How many of these Catholics were convinced of Vatican 2 corruption because of Malachi Martin? Maybe they don’t believe EVERY crazy claim Malachi Martin made, but there’s enough there to cause them to look outside of their diocesan priests and bishops and consider alternative solutions like the SSPX, Old Catholics or Sedevacantists. Even in the Dr. Taylor Marshall I cited above, the conclusions they draw are essentially, “Look I don’t believe everything Malachi Martin said, but you got to hand it to the guy. He foretold the liberal shift was coming, and he was right.”

Martin didn’t predict anything. The “liberal shift”, if we must call the lower mass attendance and priestly formations a “liberal shift”, had started in the 1950s, before Pope John XXIII took the papal throne and well before the advent of Vatican 2. Not to mention MALACHI MARTIN WAS HIMSELF PART OF THE LIBERAL CONTINGENT ACCORDING TO HIS OWN WORDS!!!!!

But if we continue to ignore Malachi Martin, if we don’t call out his lies and his contradictions, than more people who are sympathetic to the traditional push against Vatican 2 will discover Martin and take his story as gospel truth, at the risk of damning their own souls.

The stakes are high. We must get Malachi Martin right or risk losing more people to movements cut off from the Catholic Church.

The purpose of my research into Malachi Martin is; I want to give people who are interested in taking Martin’s claims at face value an opportunity to truly examine him in his own words, across his entire body of work. Did he tell the same stories consistently over the years?

My initial article was about how Martin was presenting himself shortly after he left the priesthood in 1964. In his own words, he was not a traditionalist, nor did his published works represent anything remotely traditional:

I next looked at a fake Papal prayer that was submitted to the American Jewish Committee that bore an alias we confirmed Malachi Martin was using:

After that we looked at how after writing a few works of religious indifferentism, he then decided to write a book about exorcism, something for which he had no training or background according to his own resume:

If you’ve been reading my articles about Martin thus far, you might be wondering “Wait, so what was the big deal about Malachi Martin anyway? Why do certain pockets of the online Catholic world get so uptight about him?”

To adequately answer this I think we’ll need to examine how Martin was marketing himself later in his career.

Windswept House aka a Fictional Story of How the Gates of Hell Prevailed Against the Church, But For Real

I want to be clear; this is a novel, a work of fiction. But you need to understand that Martin wrote this fictional novel as a literary device to tell you about a deep, dark evil that happened in real life inside the Vatican. Don’t take my word for it; hear directly from the man himself:

Bernard Janzen of Triumph Communications got to sit down with Malachi Martin and interview him about his newest book, “Windswept House”. According to Martin 85% of the personalities in the book are factual and 95% of the events are factual (Minute 1:49).

As soon as Martin reveals his fact formula, Janzen immediately puts his cards on the table with an emphatic, “[The book] was realistic, because I know many families who have had their unity broken apart by the crisis in the Church…”

This is why Malachi Martin has such a loyal fanbase. He gave his traditionalist audience a narrative to help explain the current “crisis in the Church”.

Listen to the entire interview if you want, but some highlights worth fast forwarding too:

17:38 Janzen asks about the opening scene of Windswept House, where a Luciferian Mass was conducted inside the Vatican to “consecrate, or enthrone Satan inside the Vatican”. Janzen asks point blank, “Now did that actually happen?” To which Martin coldly replies, “Yes, it is a historical fact.” It was conducted by people representing Luciferians from all over the world, “especially American Luciferians.”

28:50 Janzen asks about the undetected Luciferians inside the Church. Martin, “Prelates, priests, and nuns… have become members of covens. “I can’t tell you how shocking it is when you found out that a prelate is a member of a coven, and worships Satan.”

49:18 The Luciferians had an IMMENSE influence on the Novus Ordo, an enormous influence.

56:30 ALL of the sacraments as they are currently practiced in the Catholic Church can be totally invalid.

If you’re a sympathetic traditionalist scandalized by the current “crisis in the Church” but you’re wondering, how did this all come to be? How was the Catholic Church subverted? Martin offers an interesting and enthralling answer. And he was inside the Vatican during Vatican 2, so if anyone would know it would be him!

If you’re willing to overlook the absence of evidence that Martin has provided to substantiate his claims, then you can see how the above claims would be very convincing.

Not Laicized, Secularized!

In my earlier articles I demonstrated how Malachi Martin presented himself in the 1960s and 70s as a FORMER priest. Not just a former Jesuit, a man who left the priesthood altogether. Here’s his former boss William F. Buckley introducing Malachi Martin with “was a Jesuit priest” as late as 1980 (fast forward to minute 38:48):

From 1964 - 1980, we have Martin telling people he was no longer a priest or he allows himself to be introduced as a former priest. Buckley was Martin’s employer for 6 years. Surely he would have known about Martin’s priestly status.

In 1990 Martin started telling a different story about his status as a priest. In an interview with Bernard Janzen again Martin explains how he was originally trained to study middle eastern handwriting from “about the time of Abraham”. This training proved useful to Pope John XXIII for…some reason.

He had already asked for his superior’s permission to leave the Jesuits, then in 1964 Pope Paul VI granted him permission to….here I’ll let Martin explain:

Let’s get this straight; according to Malachi Martin he was secularized, not laicized, which…look I’m no canon lawyer, but I haven’t found anything online that confirms that secularized priests are even a thing.

And he got a dispensation from the Pope?! Let me ask; has anyone seen Pope Paul’s VI’s signature on ANY document conferring a secularized status to Malachi Martin? Or anyone for that matter? Are there other secularized priests offering mass, exorcising demons, all without a diocesan bishop to report too?

Hard Questions That Were Never Asked

Are we to believe without any verifiable evidence that:

• A Luciferian mass was conducted during Vatican 2 to enthrone Satan?

  • Why hasn’t any Luciferian blown the lid off of this? Wouldn’t you expect them to at least gloat about defeating the Catholic Church? If you’re an American Luciferian and you just got back from Rome after helping out with the black mass that coronated the dark lord, how long would you stay silent on that? Wouldn’t SOMEBODY spill the beans eventually?

  • What extrinsic evidence exists about the “historical fact” of the Luciferian mass? Are we really supposed to take Malachi Martin’s word alone?

  • Martin supposedly saw this happen in 1963 or so, then published about it in 1996, 33 years later. Why did he wait so long to talk about it?

• When he was presenting himself as laicized from 1964-1980, was he actually secularized instead of laicized?

  • Where is “secularized priest” within canon law?

  • Why did he tell everyone he was not traditional, not a priest for 16 years, then flip and claim to retain his priesthood AND he was traditional?

  • If Martin changed to a traditional priest, then why didn’t he ever address his heretical liberal past?

  • If Martin wasn’t actually traditional in 1964, then why did he leave Rome?

• Martin became Pope John XXIII’s confidant because of his ability to read Middle Eastern handwriting from thousands of years ago?

  • Why was this skill so necessary to Pope John XXIII?

  • Was there no one else inside the Vatican who had this elite skill? How did the Vatican correspond with their Middle Eastern churches then?

  • Middle Eastern handwriting was basically the same from antiquity to the 1960s?

If anyone genuinely asked themselves these questions they would strongly reconsider taking Malachi Martin at his word. All of his fantastical claims are just that, claims. He never produced a document from Pope Paul VI conferring his “Secularized” status. He’s not produced any documents or photos of the Vatican black mass, or any correspondence between these “Luciferian Catholic priests” and their satanic counterparts. Martin makes claims, and “journalists” like Bernard Janzen just believe him.

I haven’t come across anything that proves conclusively that Martin was a Mossad agent, but nor have I seen anything that suggests that Martin’s claims were legitimate, if for no other reason because he made different contradicting claims over the years. He wasn’t a priest from 1964 - 1980, and then he was a priest, albeit a “secularized” one?. A priestly status that is inexplicably absent from canon law.

When considering Malachi Martin, you don’t have to choose between Mossad or Traditionalist. You can appraise all of Martin’s contradictory claims and rightly conclude; dude liked to lie.

***IF YOU’RE READING THIS ON EMAIL, PLEASE GO TO THE SUBSTACK WEBSITE TO GET THE FULL ARTICLE***

(This article is a bit longer, and emails providers will typically truncate long emails. Please read the entire thing on the Substack website)

Before Martin’s career as a staunch defender of traditional Catholicism, he wrote some pretty liberal books that, if his traditionalist fans were to read they might have to reconsider their admiration for him.

This is the third article I’ve written on Malachi Martin’s earlier pop non fiction books. My first article was about Martin’s insistence that he was not traditional at all. He actually worked WITH the liberals to impose non-traditional Catholicism at Vatican 2:

The second article looked at how Malachi Martin’s fingerprints were all over a fake Papal prayer that is still cited both by “radtrad” Catholics and ecumenical Jews:

In this article we’ll look at Malachi Martin’s works leading up to his breakout as an exorcism expert in 1976. It’s important to remember that according to the Malachi Martin Mythos, Martin was a traditional Catholic priest who was horrified by the liberal excesses of Vatican 2. His conscience was so severely pricked that he left Rome, hung up his Jesuit orders and set about America to warn traditional Catholics everywhere that Vatican 2 had compromised the gospel and the entire Catholic Church’s hierarchy.

My first 2 articles should demonstrate that this traditionalist prophet motif was NOT how Martin was originally presenting himself. I do not as of yet have a definitive answer for why Martin recused himself from Vatican 2 in 1964, but the evidence is firmly against the notion that he was traditional. His writing from 1964-1976 were anything but.

Martin’s corpus leading up to 1976 consists of:

• The Pilgrim, 1964 (published under the pseudonym Michael Serafian)

• The Encounter, 1969

• Three Popes and the Cardinal, 1972

• Jesus Now, 1973

• The New Castle, 1974

• Hostage to the Devil, 1976

Please keep in mind; Malachi Martin has 12 whole years to come out to the world as a traditional Catholic. We’ll examine how his books were received in turn. If Martin was ringing the traditionalist warning bell, surely someone got the message.

The Pilgrim, Much Ado About Nothing.

In my second article, “The Papal Prayer That Never Was”, I cited a book review of “The Pilgrim” from The Pittsburgh Catholic, “America’s oldest Catholic newspaper in continuous publication.” Remember, Martin wrote this book under a pseudonym. The reviewer noted how “The Pilgrim” was yet another anonymous account from a Vatican insider. Unfortunately for Martin, Vatican 2 insider exposes had a sort of cottage industry in the early 1960s so it was hard for his book to stand out. The reviewer did not find “The Pilgrim” contained anything overtly scandalous or revealing to note.

Also worth mentioning that Martin came across as a liberal to this Catholic Book reviewer, “Michael Serafian is that most intolerant of persona, the doctrinaire liberal.”

I won’t rehash everything we touched on in the previous article, but it’s worth noting that the author 1) caught Martin getting basic facts wrong and 2) said his book was a “curiosity which should not be taken seriously”.

God is Dead, and Religion Dying

That’s the actual title of a book review of Martin’s next work, “The Encounter, Religions in Crisis”.

Malachi Martin got a grant from The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, a group whose founder was convinced that:

Oh great, a religious indifferentism thinktank. Wait, why was Martin writing for them?

The reviewer from the New York Times notes how Martin argues that Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all inadequate to meet the needs of the modern man, a “rerun of a now familiar theme”. Even in 1970 people were getting tired of religious indifferentism?

Three Popes and the Cardinal

Alright, here’s where Martin FINALLY starts bringing out his true Trad colors, right? This is the book where he blows the lid off of the liberal conspiracy against Holy Mother Church, right? Right?!

Probably the MOST important book of the year, Martin Greif? Do tell! This probably fills in gaps that Martin had to leave in “The Pilgrim”. The reason “The Pilgrim” was so underwhelming was because Martin couldn’t blow his cover. NOW he can tell us everything we need to know, that the Vatican has fallen!

Interestingly this work got a review in Church History, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Society of Church History, from Walter F. Wolbrecht. And right away Wolbrecht smells a problem. On page 46 Martin notes that he didn’t write this book to be straight history, for “history is by necessity interpretative”, and is not “an exact chronicling of events…” This explains how, like the reviewer of “the Pilgrim” noted, Martin consistently gets facts wrong. According to this work Cardinal Bea spent 43 years of his life in Germany, then somehow spent 6 years in Holland and Austria before he’s 31 or 32?

Beyond that, Wolbrecht was equally skeptical of Martin’s insistence that Cardinal Bea was the lone mastermind who pushed the entire Vatican into making major liberal changes. Please remember this point; later Martin would insist that the majority of the Catholic hierarchy was complicit in apostatizing from the true Catholic faith (a claim he would make over and over again during his promotion of “Windswept House”, 1996), yet in 1972 he was telling a different story. A single Cardinal was able to strategically pull all the strings to initiate the liberal changes the council ended up enacting.

While on the one hand you can say that Martin always talked about the Church being compromised by liberals, he failed to tell a consistent story about how that actually came about. In 1996 he was saying the majority of the Catholic hierarchy went along with apostasy, but in 1972 Martin said the majority of the Catholic Hierarchy was hoodwinked by a single wily Jesuit bishop.

Also, the destruction of the Catholic Church by the year 2000 was imminent? (Per the book cover)

It’s 1972, and we still haven’t found Martin’s later origin story evolving in any of these works.

Jesus You, Jesus Everyone, Jesus Now

Of all the books we’ve reviewed thus far, this one is the most absurd in its liberal convictions. One reviewer was quite baffled at Martin’s assertion that there’s no hope of recovering a true, historical and factual Jesus.

I found the book quite jarring as someone who was reading it looking for any traditional convictions that Martin may have had. If you take the stance that Martin had to write more liberal leaning stuff in his early career before he could come out as a traditionalist…, well that explains “The Pilgrim” and “The Encounter” to a certain degree. But that’s only if you buy the “he HAD to write liberal trite at the beginning!”, which I’m not sure that I do. “Jesus Now” stands as another strike against the notion that Martin was a traditionalist hiding in plain sight. Why was he publishing this trash 9 years after he left the Vatican?

Let me take you towards the end of the book to demonstrate. Chapter 29 (The New Mime of Destiny”, here is where Martin explores how man gropes for universal truth to fulfil deep-seated desires of transcendentness. Science is inadequate to answer these questions, and while science can examine the brain and its thought waves the mind operates outside of these waves, “bent on discovering the eternal complex.”(page 260) Does this groping for the eternal complex lead to Jesus Christ?

Cosmic Christ force?

Anyways, when can we know our mind has surpassed our brain?

Please go on, Mr. Martin, what happens after I’ve had one of these experiences?

Forget supposed traditional Catholic bona fides for a second: what self respecting Catholic writes this garbage?

Jesus Now Take 2

In 1974 Martin publishes ANOTHER book about man transcending himself.

This Kirkus review confirms that, like “Jesus Now”, we have ANOTHER book about religious indifferentism. The reviewer notes that:

Even religious liberals were finding Martin’s work a little tired and boring. No sign of Martin’s latent traditional Catholicism bubbling under the surface in this work either.

When Exorcisms Went Viral

If we go to 1976, we’ll see Martin has switched literary genres entirely.

A priest who was trained in Semitic languages, taught at the Pontifical Bible Institute because of his linguistic background, is now an exorcism expert?

It’s worth noting that when Martin published this book America was experiencing a deep interest in exorcism thanks to William Peter Blatty’s book “The Exorcist” (1971) and the movie by the same title (1973). Martin’s book was also published the same year as the the movie “The Omen” in 1976, something Martin’s publishers did not want you to forget.

I’m not going to dive deeper into this work. I’ll only quickly note that the concept of “perfect possession”, a term Martin coined in this book where someone is wholly and totally demon possessed and does not have the capacity to have their demon exorcised, is a novel concept with no basis in traditional Catholic teaching or demonology.

It’s also worth noting that William Peter Blatty hated Martin’s book, saying “it gives possession a bad name.”

Real Malachi Martin Please Stand Up?

Anyone who honestly appraises Malachi Martin’s published works and interviews from 1964 - 1976, you could not conclude that this was a traditional Catholic priest by any stretch of the imagination. And yet you will still find traditional Catholics, Sedevacantists, SPPXers all singing Martin’s praises as a man ahead of his time, a prophet, someone who saw the coming liberal wave and in vain warned the Church about it. Go on Youtube and pull up any of Malachi Martin’s interviews. Scroll down to the comments:

Are any of these commenters aware of Martin’s early works or his inability to get basic facts straight? And yet they’re relying SOLELY on his testimony to decide that the entire Roman Catholic Church hierarchy has apostatized from the Christian faith.

Even the staunchest Martin fanboy would have to concede that Martin was not prophesying to the traditionalists in the 60’s and 70’s, nor was his work reflective of someone with traditional Catholic convictions. I really appreciated this comment from one Malachi Martin fan who actually read one of Martin’s liberal books, “The New Castle” and offered the most reasonable explanation as someone who insists that Martin was reliable and true:

Honestly, the above is one of the two conclusions you must draw when you read Martin’s early works. Either he was an actual heretic promoting heresy up through 1974 OR he was a liar.

I’ll let you draw what you believe to be the most reasonable conclusion.

• Liberals have captured the Catholic Church

• This takeover prompted him to leave Rome due to his traditional conscience

Then you would expect his written publications from that era to reflect that traditional conscience. But as we examined in my first article, Malachi Martin, who abruptly left the Vatican in 1964, was not presenting him as traditional at all.

For these next articles we’ll continue to examine Martin’s earlier work and see how it contrasts with the self image he espoused in the 1980s and 90s. Within traditional Catholicism there’s an affinity, a deep admiration for Malachi Martin and his work. For them, Martin was the bellwether, the prophet who foretold the doom of the post Vatican 2 church.

But if that’s true, that Malachi Martin was a deeply convicted traditional Catholic priest, then why does his publications from that time appear so…liberal?

Malachi Martin the Secret Agent

Martin’s first major publication came in 1964 under a book entitled, “The Pilgrim”. He wrote this under the pseudonym Michael Serafian. It was marketed as an insider account from a Vatican diplomat, although a review in 1964 from a Catholic publication found the book left much to be desired, and certainly not a book written by a traditional Catholic1:

Some highlights from this review:

• The book is more of a liberal’s wish list of what the Catholic Church should be, not an insider’s account of the the goings on inside the Second Vatican Council

• The council will rise or fall based on…”the statement on the relationship between the Church and the Jews”?

• This “diplomat” isn’t too worried about facts:

  • Says Cardinal Bea pressured an American cardinal to explain to the council that the structure of the Pope was an innovation, that originally the Church had been governed by a system of patriarchs. That conversation never happened.

  • Says Swiss theologian Hans Kung was German 3 times.

  • Says the city of Strasbourg was German, not French

My own reading of Malachi Martin’s “The Pilgrim” is that it is a liberal Catholic’s work whose chief concern is the sin of antisemitism. I was shocked that he would explicitly call church fathers such as Irenaeus, John Chrysostom, Augustine and Aquinas all antisemites.

Another quote which again, I’m not aware of any traditional Catholic priest who would share this conviction:

Peter did not speak of a deliberate deicide? Read Acts chapters 2 and 3 and tell me what Peter is doing when he tells Jerusalem that they killed the Author of life. Martin is seriously suggesting that the plain reading of Peter’s own words would have been blasphemous to Peter. Presumably the many theologians who have read those sermons the obvious way get lumped in with the Church Father antisemites he listed earlier.

As it turns out, Malachi Martin was writing a few other things that were pushing the bounds of creativity beyond what he published in “The Pilgrim”.

The Pope Promulgated a Forged Prayer?

What exactly was Malachi Martin’s role with the Vatican during Vatican 2? In my research I’ve seen claims that Martin was Cardinal Bea’s personal secretary, the cardinal whose role in Vatican 2 was the President of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, the office charged with drafting Nostrae Aetate. Although from what I can tell, the claims that Martin had such a high role in this office are claims made only by Martin, without corroborating sources.

Regardless, we know that Martin was in the Vatican, and we know that he used this access to provide secret information to outside parties, including the American Jewish Committee.

One of the secret documents that Martin produced was a “Prayer of Repentance”, a prayer supposedly written by Pope John XXIII right before his death. The Pope’s reported intent was to have this prayer “recited in all the Catholic churches of the world”.

It first appeared in January 1965, in the American Jewish Committee’s magazine Commentary, in an article titled “Vatican II and the Jews.” The author was listed under a second pseudonym: F. E. Cartus. The magazine identified Cartus only as “a Roman Catholic observer who has watched developments at the Ecumenical Council closely.”

Here is the prayer:

It is a forgery. And it’s worth noting that the liberal contingent who would have benefited most from the existence of this prayer have all denounced it as the forgery that it is.

Msgr. Loris Capovilla was Pope John XXIII’s personal secretary, the custodian of his papers. He denied the prayer’s authenticity from the start. A Rhode Island Herald article from November 11, 1966 already carries his denial, less than two years after publication. Decades later he was even more emphatic, calling it pure invention, saying it matches neither the spirit nor the style of Pope John, who would never have permitted it to be said that Christians bear the mark of Cain on their foreheads. Roncalli’s writings have been exhaustively studied and published. There is no trace of this prayer anywhere in them.

Msgr. John Oesterreicher rejected it too. Oesterreicher was a Jewish convert to Catholicism, one of the actual drafters of Nostra Aetate, and a pioneer of Jewish-Catholic reconciliation. He named The Pilgrim by “Serafian” and the Commentary article as the most alarming examples of so-called disclosures being accepted as authentic reports. He identified the author of both as the ex-Jesuit Malachi Martin, writing under two different pseudonyms. He said everyone who knew the Pope’s mind and style was convinced the prayer was fabricated. And he noted that Martin had refused, in all the years since, to offer any proof of its authenticity.

So the debunking does not come from angry traditionalists. It comes from the men who built the document Martin was supposedly serving.

For the full documentary trail, I highly recommend the scholarly treatment of this: M. K. Watson, “The ‘Johannine Prayer’ that Never Really Was,” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 6:1 (2011), published by Boston College’s Center for Christian-Jewish Learning and freely available online. It documents both the prayer’s forty-year circulation and the evidence pointing to Martin as its source.

Who Exactly What Malachi Martin Again?

So far we’ve determined that in the 1960s and early 70s, Malachi Martin was:

• A bleeding heart liberal gravely concerned about the Church’s institutionalized antisemitism

• Willing to correct the Apostle Peter on what Peter meant in his own sermons

• Circulating a forged prayer in a dead Pope’s voice, and refusing for the rest of his life to defend it when the Pope’s own secretary called it an invention

The questions multiply.

If Martin was truly a liberal, why did he leave before Nostra Aetate, the document he had been working toward, and forging papal texts to promote, was finally published?

And if you insist that Malachi Martin was a deeply convicted traditional Catholic:

• Why was Malachi Martin writing and publishing this liberal material in the 1960s and 70s?

• If he was later convicted of traditional Catholicism, then why did he leave the Vatican before those convictions were realized?

• If he was a traditional Catholic before his departure, then why didn’t he use his influence to coordinate with the conservative contingent within Vatican 2?

• Why was he leaking Vatican correspondence to the American Jewish Committee and the secular press, and not to traditional Catholic publications?

• And why did what he passed along include a document he had made up?

We’ll continue to dive through Martin’s work together and see what the best, most reasonable explanations might turn out to be.

• A cadre of liberal bishops pounced on the opportunity to change Catholic dogma

• Vatican 2 started promulgating universalism, indifferentism, etc.

• Zionists infiltrated the council and helped enact their nefarious agenda

• A luciferian mass was conducted to install the dark prince as the head of the Catholic church.

That last one is especially scary. There are Catholics who legitimately believe that a luciferian mass was conducted on June 29th, 1963 during Vatican 2 to install Satan as the head of the Catholic church. If true, this is an incredible claim that has a vast amount of consequences and implications. Are we living in the time of the Antichrist? After 2,000 years, had the gates of Hell finally prevailed against the Church? Is the Catholic Church still the ark of salvation with Satan incarnate at it’s helm?

Fortunately none of us have to consider these implications. Because the only source for this fantastical claim is one man; Malachi Martin.

Martin disclosed the details of this evil mass in his work of (ironically) fiction, “Windswept House”. He later confirmed that the details of this mass were based on real, actual events. But had he ever provided any evidence to these fantastical claims? Have any investigative journalists, priests, Vatican insiders, anyone provide anything in terms of evidence, corroboration to the claim that the Vatican conducted a lucifaraian mass?

The answer is an emphatic and resounding no.

The First Iteration of Malachi Martin

How would Malachi Martin have known that such a mass took place in the Vatican in 1963? Because he was there! Martin was inside the Vatican working with the very people who would initiate the liberal changes he would later build his trad career besmirching. He famously resigned from the Jesuit order in June or July of 1964 in large part because his conscience was pricked by the liberal onslaught of Vatican 2.

At least that’s how he later told it. But as I’ve come to learn, the original way Martin portrayed himself in the 60s and early 70s was NOT that of a traditional Catholic. Far from it. According to him, he was part and parcel of the liberal cadre that was trying to persuade the conservative bishops to capitulate to liberalism.

How do we know this? In 1973 Martin released a book, “Jesus Now”, which as we’ll learn later is itself one of the most universalist sounding religious books ever published by a professing Catholic. In December of that same year he had an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer to promote this book. I’ve included the interview here in it’s entirety so you can see for yourself that Martin’s self portrayal as a traditional Catholic had not yet taken for. If anything he was the exact opposite.

Some notable excerpts:

• He claimed that Cardinal Bea was the “leader of the liberal caucus in the Roman Catholic Church”.

• Bea apparently recruited Martin to work “exciting and seductive chores”.

• These chores included “shaking long-closeted skeletons in the faces of cardinals who didn’t quite want to do what Cardinal Bea and the Pope wanted.”

• “I saw cardinals sweating in front of me, and I began to enjoy it.”

• It was a “clear understanding of this malicious joy” that prompted Martin to push Cardinal Bea to accept his request for lay status.

According to Martin’s own testimony, almost 10 years after he left Rome he was portraying himself as someone who:

• Part of, not against, the liberal contingent in the Vatican.

• He was laicized per his own request!

Now in case you think this particular journalist was mistaken, misheard or misunderstood Martin’s background, or had taken great liberties to change Martin’s story, I’d direct you to this interview Martin gave on William F. Buckley’s “The Firing Line”.

Note how the host, Buckley, introduces Martin. He calls him Mr. Malachi Martin. He notes how he:

Regardless of how Malachi Martin was portraying himself in the 1980s and 90s, it’s a matter of fact that up through 1973 he was marketing himself as a layperson, a former priest. He was also telling anyone who would listen that he was very much a Catholic liberal.

Which begs a series of questions:

If Malachi Martin was a liberal in 1964, and not a conservative as he later claimed, then why did he quit the priesthood? I had always heard that the reason Martin left Rome and his religious orders was because his conscience was pricked by the liberal wave he saw overtake the Vatican. But his testimony from that time says that HE was part of that liberal wave! So why did he quit?

Did Malachi Martin retain his priestly status, or was he laicized? The second half of his career was spent banking on his supposed priestly status given all of his exorcism work. But why was he telling people in the 1970s that he was no longer a priest?

If we take his testimony from the 1960s and 70s as true, that he was a bleeding heart liberal, then when did he make the change to become a traditional priest, and why? Did he recant his previous liberal convictions? Did he ever acknowledge his previous liberal beliefs? What did Martin ACTUALLY believe, when did he believe it, and why?

Can the Real Malachi Martin Please Stand Up?

My intent is to write a series of articles where I look at Martin’s early work and contrast it against the popular mythos Martin holds within the Traditional Catholic community. If the mythos is correct, that Martin was a peregrine of traditional Catholicism who stood against the liberal excesses of Vatican 2, then we should expect to see a consistent testimony of Martin doing exactly that, leaving Rome, as he said, as a matter of conscience.

We’ll end this article with a direct quote from Martin contained in the last part of the aforementioned Cincinnati Enquirer article. After acknowledging that the theology Martin was promoting in his “Jesus Now” book went “beyond conventional belief”, he further clarified, “I’m not traditional”.

If the Martin Mythos is correct, and Martin was a traditional Catholic priest this entire time, then clearly someone forgot to inform Martin in 1973.

We live in the advent of vibe coding, where laypeople not familiar with coding or computer science can use AI to help develop and deploy ideas into usable apps. You describe your idea to the AI, the AI does the coding heavy lifting to make your dream into a reality.

I’d like to pursue the idea of developing an app that helps you log the indulgences your earn. After all, according to Norm 17 Section 2:

You can’t procure indulgences if you’re not intending to procure them. For a lot of us, indulgences is not something we’re seeing taught regularly in our parishes, and we don’t have the time and energy to look up and figure out

• Which indulgences are available today?

• How do you procure them?

If there was an app that already did that backend work for you, then you could open the app, find an indulgence, engage in the work, log it, and move on with your day.

Indulgence maxxing is important not just for us, but those who are still in purgatory (Norm 3):

With all of this in mind, how should the app be designed? This article is to explain my current thought process, and to solicit thoughts from other Catholics who might have a different frame they can offer to help me finish this project.

Plenary vs. Partial

In the old days, indulgences were given certain time frames based on the importance or the difficulty in procuring the indulgence. Post Vatican 2 we have a simpler system; Plenary Indulgences and Partial Indulgences.

Plenaries are obviously harder to attain given the full removal of the temporal punishment, while partials are more accessible.

For an app, I was originally thinking that I’d have an option to log an indulgence as a plenary or a partial. Let’s say you click on the rosary indulgence. Then the app would ask you if it was plenary or not. “Were you in a group? Did you meet this plenary condition? What about this condition?”

The more I thought about it, the more like it seemed to make a ton of clicks for something which, were the indulgence partial, would take a lot of time to log. So that idea is scratched.

Plus the indulgence manual notes that for a lot of the plenary indulgences, you have to meet certain requirements like being in the right part of the liturgical calendar. As an example:

If the idea of the app is too indulg maxx, then making an entry for an indulgence that is only available one day out of the liturgical calendar seems like a lot of work with a low payoff.

In fact, the more I looked at plenary indulgences, the more I ran into these types of time constraints. What if this was a way to find and make entries for plenaries that are available every day of the year? Man, would I have to comb through each indulgence and mark them as I find them?

Great news; no! Under the Introduction section of the Grants, we find this gem:

7. Deserving of special mention are grants pertaining to those works by any one of which the faithful can obtain a plenary indulgence each day of the year…:

• Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament for at least 1 half hour

• The pious exercise of the Way of the Cross

• Recitation of the Marian rosary in church or an oratory; or in a family, a religious community, or a sodality of the faithful or, in general, when several of the faithful are gathered for any good purpose

• The devout reading or listening to the Sacred Scriptures for at least a half an hour

Boom, there’s the plenary indulgences! For our app, we could put a 5th entry that’s a simple “Other Plenaries” which allows the user to cite the Manual of Indulgences to log any of the other more specific types of plenaries that are available, and log them under a miscellaneous tab.

After that, we could make whichever partial indulgence entries we want.

The Perfect Antidote to Doomscrolling

You might be thinking “Lucas, this seems really neat and all, but making an app to log what should be holy and spiritual pursuits seems a bit ludicrous. Are you just trying to grab hold of a meme and cash in on a cultural moment?”

No. First of all, this app would be absolutely free. Second of all, I think there’s another benefit beyond the holy and righteous pursuit of procuring indulgences. Indulg Maxxing can be a great antidote to the scourge that is doomscrolling.

How many of us sitnessed firsthand the vitriol, the nastiness online and thought “Boy, I should really get rid of my social media. Or maybe even my phone!” Now whether or not these sorts of measures are reasonable for you to undertake, I’m not going to say one way or the other.

But for those of us who intend to stay online, what’s a great way to counteract all the online darkness? Here’s some suggestions:

• Switch your feed to only people you follow (don’t allow the algorithms to curate your feed!)

• Be very thoughtful, intentional about who you follow

• Commit to logging a partial indulgence before each and every time you open your social media

Think about it; instead of opening Twitter to mindlessly scroll, letting the gates of our eyes open to whoever and whatever wanders onto our timeline, instead work towards an indulgence. THEN you get to open your social media.

And the partial indulgences are simple. As an example:

A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who teach or study Christian doctrine (Grant 6)

Did you watch your favorite eThomist on Youtube? Log it, then open Facebook.

A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful who for their personal education devoutly spend time in mental prayer. (Grant 15)

Say a mental prayer. Log it. Not you can get back on Twitter.

When you’re at the end of the week, you can look back at all the indulgences you earned and offer them up for the souls in purgatory. How cool is that?

The Indulg Maxxing app is not creating opportunities for indulgences, but it is a simpler way for us to approach indulgences and to log our efforts. What do you think?

That was more or less the topic of my last article. Now that I’ve finished reading the Manual of Indulgences: Norms and Grants, I thought I would highlight some sections that give the impression that maxxing out on indulgences isn’t merely permissible; it’s highly encouraged.

Of particular note is the Apostolic Constitution Of Pope Paul VI Indulgentiarum Doctrina which underpins and promulgates the most updated Church’s teaching on indulgences. I want to highlight a few sections that stuck out to me before I get to the Papal admonition to indulg maxx.

First, what is the purpose of indulgences?

As a quick sidenote, the scriptural references for existence of temporal eartly punishments are interesting:

• Genesis 3:16-19

  • Adam and Eve’s temporal punishment for their sin in the garden of Eden

• Luke 19:41-44

  • Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and prophesying its destruction due to it’s rejection of Him

• Romans 2:9 and 1 Corinthians 11:30

  • Paul teaching that everyone feels temporal punishments, including those who take communion unworthily

• Saint Augustine’s exposition on Psalm 58 is also referenced. Of particular note:

  • “It is not therefore the punishments of the lower places, not the punishments of that fire everlasting after the resurrection, not those punishments which as yet in this world are common to just men and unjust men, and ofttimes more heavy are those of just men than those of unjust men; but some punishment or other of the present life the Spirit of God would recommend to our notice.”

To the idea that indulgences were just a medieval practice that the Catholic Church should never have implemented and was forced to correct due to the Protestant Reformation…no, not even close.

In fact, this document calls out the history of indulgences directly and honestly:

Ok, so the Church teaches that by engaging in the meritorious acts of indulgences we can then earn our way out of temporal punishments? No, it’s not your merits. The merits you access in indulgences were merits ultimately earned by Christ.

Another shoutout to the scriptural references for this section:

• Hebrews 7:23-25

  • Jesus saves to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him

• Hebrews 9:11-28

  • There will never be a greater sacrifice than Christ’s.

And finally, the call to maxx out on them indulg’s:

I’ll admit; indulg maxxing is a silly name, but the endeavor is holy, spiritually worthwhile and encouraged by the Church to engage in. But the next question; is there a systematic way that we can approach indulg maxxing?

Stay tuned to Cool, Calm and Catholic; next time we’ll try and make an app that tracks our indulg maxxing.

According to Twitter/X earlier this month, the answer was an emphatic no.

Many were quick to point out that no, there is not an official church teaching that prohibits anyone from praying a rosary during mass.

But also, why would you want too?

As a convert myself, I find conversations around proper sacramental etiquette to be important. I don’t want to engage in a practice that is abnormal in any way. I just want to be a good catholic.

But the idea that someone would pray a rosary while the mass was going on seemed… absurd? I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to take out their rosary beads and start reciting decades while the priest is leading the mass.

In our group chat we started joking about what would possess someone to pray a rosary during mass. Maybe it was a super alpha gymbro catholic was was trying to max out on indulgences?

“Hey bro, I lifted up your intentions this morning at mass!”

“Thanks bro! Did you also get in a rosary bro?”

“……”

“Come on broski, what are you even doing? Take every thought captive, make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. That’s St. Paul, bro!”

The running joke took its course in our group chat. Wouldn’t it be funny if one of these Gen Alpha “maxxers” started researching indulgences, finding ways to maximize the holy life and procure the maximum amount of indulgences possible. That would be funny, right?

Right?

And then the joke evolved into a serious question for me. Why…aren’t we trying to max out on indulgences? Isn’t earning indulgences, doesn’t that come from our efforts to live holier and more sanctified lives? “Maxxing out” on indulgences on the surface seems unserious at best, profane at worst. But also, shouldn’t we be pursuing them, offering them up once we’ve maxxed out?

I couldn’t get this idea out of my mind. I had to start researching the Church’s teaching on indulgences. And what I learned was pretty interesting.

First, shoutout to Ascension Press who JUST published the Manual of Indulgences, the most up to date version of the manual in March of 2026.

(It does feel pretty crazy to me that as I’m looking this up, there happens to be the most up to date manual available).

From now on “Cool, Calm and Catholic” will be dedicated to extracting what I believe are valuable nuggets from this manual.

For instance, did you know that:

• (N20) in order for an indulgence to gain a plenary status, besides excluding all attachment to sin, even venial, you must also meet the following three conditions:

  • Sacramental confession

  • Eucharistic communion

  • Pray for the intention of the Pope

• (N18) you can only earn 1 plenary a day

• (Grant 17) A plenary indulgence is granted to the faithful who:

  • devoutly recite the Marian rosary in…. ….an association of the faithful…

    • 5 decades must be recited without interruption

    • Devout meditation on the mysteries is to be added to the vocal prayer

    • In its public recitation the mysteries must be announced in accord with approved local custom

Think for a second about all the rosary spaces that happen on Twitter/X every single day! And it appears based on the manual that if you’re in a state of grace, no attachment to sin, you’re eligible to earn a plenary indulgence for your participation in the rosary spaces!!!!!!

Of course it’s worth pointing out that all plenary intentions must be joined to the intentions of the Holy Father, which to be honest I didn’t even know was a thing before I dived into this manual. It would be AMAZING if the rosary space hosts on Twitter/X added the Pope’s current intentions at the beginning of their rosary spaces, thereby enabling the indulgence earned at the rosary to be plenary eligible.

“But Lucas, the holy life is not a gym exercise. What you’re describing is actually a profane and obscene way to think about indulgences and sanctification. We’re trying to be saints, not athletes.”

I strongly disagree. I believe there’s a reason why St. Paul used a lot of metaphors about athletes, marathons and soldiers in his writings to describe the holy life. Yes, not everyone needs to monitor their decades/reps and document their mortification like an athlete. But far from being a hindrance, taking a maxxing mentality to holiness might actually make a big difference for some Catholics.

“But what’s even the point of maxxing? You earn you indulgence, then you’ve removed the temporal punishment for your sins. Why the emphasis on maxxing after you’ve “maxxed” ?”

Because according to Church teaching:

We’re asked by the Church to pray for the souls in purgatory. What if you were maxxing out on indulgences, then offering up your surplus indulgences for the souls in purgatory?

At the end of the day, I’m just a novice, and I would LOVE for other Catholics to come on this INDULG MAXXING journey with me. Get a copy of the latest Manual of Indulgences, and let’s maxx out together for Jesus and His Church.

• How I discovered this devotion for myself and started hosting the Chaplet of the Holy Face on X.

• The history of this Archconfraternity, with some details on:

  • Sister Mary of St. Peter, the nun to whom our Lord gave these revelations

  • Pope Leo XIII’s fast tracking the Confraternity of the Holy Face into an Archconfraternity

• The Catholic community on X (Twitter) who currently prays the Chaplet of the Holy Face EVERY MORNING

  • How to connect with this group should you wish to join

  • Resources for you to explore this devotion and join the Archconfraternity

My hope is that you will see the importance and the sanctity of this devotion, and whether or not you join us on X I hope that you’ll at least share the power and the importance of this devotion.

A Protestant Meets the Holy Face

As a convert from Protestantism, I proactively enrolled myself into catechismclass.com to complete my OCIA online. Catechism Class was a great opportunity to learn the fundamentals of the Catholic faith in an online format with traditional Catholic catechesis.

It was during this OCIA when I came across the devotion to the Holy Face. I couldn’t explain why I was drawn to this particular devotion. In OCIA you’re introduced to a variety of Catholic devotions like the Rosary, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, among others. But I remember feeling a burning deep within me as the Holy Face Devotion was being described. Perhaps I was magnetically drawn to this devotion because as a Protestant, I never truly appreciated the Incarnation of Christ. I believed that Jesus really existed, is really God, really became man, really died a physical death on Calvary. But Jesus was also a kind of a historical figurehead for me, like George Washington or King Charlemagne. The Incarnation itself, the fact that God condescended Himself to be born of a woman, to nurse as a child, to grow from adolescence into a man, none of these facts seemed very relevant to me as a Protestant. The Devotion to the Holy Face astounded me, smacked me in my own face and convicted me to meditate deeply upon the Incarnation of Christ, and upon his Holy Face.

So in the spring of 2024 I decided to start hosting this chaplet on X.

For those unfamiliar, X (formerly Twitter) is a social media platform like Facebook or Instagram. One of the features of this platform is the ability for users to host a “space”. A space is basically a conference call that any Twitter user can come and join. Think of spaces as a social media conference call.

I started using spaces to host the Chaplet of the Holy Face so that others could pray the chaplet with me. Initially I started hosting Monday - Friday only. But I felt convicted that this wasn’t enough, and decided to start hosting every day of the week. 6am was a good time to pray this early in the morning. Get up, get your prayers in, then start your day.

Honestly I’m surprised that it’s still going almost 2 years later. The lifespan of this devotion on X is certainly not due to me; first and foremost I believe God has granted a special grace to keep this devotion up, and secondly, Catholic Twitter has some amazing people who have come alongside me and helped me out tremendously. Whenever I’ve been unable to host the chaplet myself, one of my friends will step up, fill in the gap and keep the devotion going.

Now how exactly did this devotion get started in the first place?

From Tours, France to the Curia in Rome

Sister Mary of St. Peter was a Carmelite nun in Tours, France. I highly recommend her book if you want to learn more about her background and how she came to be entrusted with the Holy Face Devotion by our Lord himself. Like most Catholic mystics, Sister Mary had to deal with self doubt, skepticism from others, disbelief from her superiors, all kinds of trials before her revelations were confirmed to be divine and legitimate.

Devotion to Jesus Christ and his Holy Face is not a new devotion necessarily. The 1887 manual that propagates the devotion notes how the Jesus’ holy face was adored and contemplated from the very beginning of his Incarnation. His Holy Face was adored by Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds at his birth. God became man, and adopted a Holy Face that “wore an expression of benignity and tenderness towards the little children, but it terrified the sellers in the Temple.”

For Sister Mary, the intent of the revelations she received about the Holy Face was to call the Church to start “applying the worship of the sorrowful Face of Jesus Christ to the reparation of blasphemies, of infidelity and of other forms of impiety which are the grief and dishonour of the age in which we live.”

Interesting how Sister Mary started receiving these revelations in 1843.

Karl Marx would publish his infamous “Communist Manifesto” in 1848.

Jesus was proactively arming His Church with the weapons they would need to seek the reparations required from the blasphemy this newest godless ideology would necessitate!

Once the Church recognized the importance of this devotion, She moved at LIGHTNING SPEED to erect its sacredness across the entire universal body of believers.

• October 25, 1884 - Confraternity of the Holy Face established in Tours, France

• September 1, 1885, formal petition sent to Pope Leo XIII requesting an elevation to Archconfraternity

• October 1, 1885, Pope Leo XIII elevates to a perpetual Archconfraternity.

THE CONFRATERNITY WASN’T EVEN A YEAR OLD before it was elevated to an ARCHCONFRATERNITY!

And it only took 30 DAYS from the original request for the Pope to elevate it.

Among archconfraternities, this devotion is incredibly unique for the speed with which is was elevated. No other devotion comes even remotely close. It makes you wonder; what did Pope Leo XIII see in this devotion that caused him to elevate it so quickly? Why did our Lord through the workings of the Holy Spirit stir His Church to deploy this weapon against blasphemy so rapidly?

I’m fairly certain I don’t need to explain how blasphemy has become a cultural sacrament of the West. Parodies of the Church and her doctrines abound, and are celebrated as evidence of our societies’ enlightenment and evolution from her superstitious past.

The opening ceremony from the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics is just one of many examples that mock the Christian faith. It’s also ironic that this particular example, which placed this blasphemy in front of the entire world, occurred in France, the country with which our Lord first gave the Holy Face Devotion.

So how does one join the fight and start praying for reparations as our Lord petitioned?

I Want YOU to join the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face TODAY!

What sort of commitment does it take to join this Archconfraternity? How do you register?

I’m so glad you asked.

Below are the conditions for being associated to the archconfraternity according to the manual. I’ve included my own commentary underneath each bullet point.

1. To be inscribed on the Register of the Oratory of the Holy Face

   1. The headquarters for the Archconfraternity is still in Tours, France.

   2. You can register online here:

      1. https://www.oratoiredelasainteface.fr/archiconfrerie-de-la-sainte-face/

   3. For English speakers, be sure to hit “EN” in the top right corner. The website defaults to French.

2. To receive the rule, with the certificate of admission

   1. You should recieve the certificate after you register online.

3. Every day, to recite, for the intentions of the Archconfraternity, in Latin or in English, a Pater, Ave, Gloria and the invocation : Domine, ostende Faciem tuam et salvi erimus: (( Lord show us Thy Face, and we shall be saved))

   1. We do this every day on X at 6am CST, Monday - Sunday!

   2. Follow me on X to see the notifications. Here’s my profile:

      1. https://x.com/addicted2grace

4. To wear a little effigy of the Holy Face, either on a cross, medal or scapular'

   1. There are so many Catholic stores that make these items, they’re not hard to find.

   2. Be sure to support your local Catholic businesses!

   3. Also, make sure you have whatever Holy Face item you’re using be blessed by a priest.

5. To assist, in as for as may be possible, at the monthly meetings

   1. Fulfilling your meeting requirements for the Archconfraternity of the Holy Face only requires 1 meeting a month. If you join us on X, we meet EVERY SINGLE DAY, very easy to meet this obligation!

6. To propagate, to the utmost of our power, the devotion to the suffering Face of Our Lord.

   1. Join us on X, or share this devotion across whatever social media platform you utilize.

If you’d like to see the prayers we use for the Chaplet of the Holy Face and other associated prayers, you can use this link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1u4n5uCg-EUV2dhNVOi-Gq9jh_Amt-F06t59lB6-o0wM/edit?usp=sharing

This year will be 2 years since I started hosting this Chaplet. I’m so thankful to God almighty for the privilege of engaging in this devotion, for being able to share it with others. My hope is that you’ll join us too as we seek to push back against the culture who blasphemes and desecrates our Lord.

In my first article I explained why I picked up this ancient work:

In my second article I responded to the libelous propaganda surrounding Origen:

In my third article I looked to see what Origen has to say regarding the doctrine of Predestination

Now it’s time, it’s finally time to get to the doctrine that initially drew me to pick up Origen’s commentary in the first place; Faith Alone, the doctrine that teaches all you need to be saved is to place Faith Alone in Jesus, no works required. Was this an accepted teaching in the early church? In Matthew Thomas’ work “Paul's "Works of the Law" in the Perspective of Second-Century Reception” the answer seems to be no. The Early Church Fathers Thomas cites seem to take Paul’s critique of “works” as criticisms of the old and abrogated Mosaic Law. According to them Paul was teaching the Church to put their faith in Christ and to stop placing their faith in the “Works of the Law”. They did not take Paul to mean that works or obedience were not required under the New Covenant. But as Thomas concedes, Justification and the role Works play in the New Covenant is not dealt with in a thorough and systematic manner in the 2nd century writings that exist today.

Which is what makes Origen’s commentary on Romans so interesting. As previously mentioned, Origen wrote the earliest commentary on Romans we have in existence. And even though Origen wrote the commentary to battle the “Nature Gnostic Heretics” he inevitably addresses Justification since Justification is one of the major themes of Paul’s letter. We may not have a thorough treatise of Justification in the 2nd century, but with Origen we can see what he understood Justification to be, and perhaps the view of his 3rd century contemporaries.

Now you might be thinking, “well regardless of what Origen did or didn’t think, Paul said “we are saved by faith apart from works”, ergo this is a pretty open/shut case. We’re saved by Faith Alone.” Let’s take a step back for a second. One of the issues we run into when reading Paul is the fact that he used the same word to mean different things depending on the context. When Paul is speaking on works, is he speaking on “works of the law”, “works of of the flesh”, or just “works” in general. If he’s talking about “works of the law”, does he mean Mosaic Law? Natural Law? Divine Law? Origen makes a compelling case that Paul cites many different types of law right from the get/go.

Origen points out that Paul goes through great lengths to explain the differences between the law that Israel was given vs. the law that the gentiles had written on their hearts. Obviously gentiles weren’t on Mt. Sinai receiving the Mosaic Law. But does that mean they can’t sin? Of course not! Then we must recognize that there are different types of laws.

There are different types of laws, and Christians are subject to Christ’s law. A Christian who is a doer of Christ’s law is justified, after all.

So did Origen share a Protestant understanding of Justification? Turns out he was the first Church Father to say that we are saved by Faith Alone!

If that’s not a clear teaching of Faith Alone, I don’t know what is.

But wait, there’s more!

Protestant’s often point to the example of the thief on the cross as the epitome of Faith Alone saving, and Origen defends the Faith Alone position citing that very example here. Well there you go, Faith Alone was present in the early church!

Let’s keep reading to see if Origen continues describing Protestant ideas of Justification.

Origen, are you saying there’s no “Once saved, always saved”?

Do you remember Origen citing 1 Corinthians 9:27 to demonstrate that Paul wasn’t sure of his future salvation, and if Paul didn’t presume his salvation than neither should we? While it is true that Origen did teach that faith alone saves, it’s important to note that he differed significantly with Protestants on other issues regarding Justification. He very clearly did not share a “Once Saved, Always Saved” belief. Over and over again he stresses the importance of staying saved.

But what does Origen do with Romans 4 where Paul says that we’re saved by faith just like Abraham was saved by faith? The whole point of the Abraham citation is how Abraham has his Faith Alone counted as righteousness simply for believing in God’s promises.

What shall we say then that Abraham hath found, who is our father according to the flesh. For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice.

• Romans 4:1-3

Here’s the passage Paul is citing:

Abram believed God, and it was reputed to him unto justice.

• Genesis 15:6

Do you believe? Then you’re saved! Simple as that.

Origen does address this and, I’m going to be honest: I felt really stupid when I first read the following:

I had never asked myself this question before; was Genesis 15:6 the first time Abraham believed God? Abraham’s story doesn’t start in Genesis 15. It starts much earlier and records several instances when Abraham used faith. Abraham HAD to have faith in God in order to leave his family and follow God. He HAD to have faith when he chased after his kidnapped nephew Lot. In fact, far from demonstrating that Faith Alone saved Abraham, Genesis 15:6 begs the question; why did Abraham have to wait until Genesis 15:6 before his faith saved him?

Luckily Origen offers a solution:

Through trials, tribulations, and even works, Abraham had his faith perfected. Paul’s citation of Genesis 15:6 isn’t Paul saying works and obedience are not required in the New Covenant. Paul’s whole point was that Abraham’s faith saved him BEFORE God instituted the rite of circumcision. Paul is saying that faith was always the saving factor, both in the old and new covenants. Just because the works of the Mosaic law do not save, it does not follow that we can disobey the law of Christ and still expect to be saved. Abraham had to believe and obey. And believe and obey again. And again. And continue obeying through Genesis 15:6 all the way to Genesis 20:10 where he moves to sacrifice Isaac, where James confirms Abraham was justified…again!

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, offering up Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou, that faith did co-operate with his works; and by works faith was made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled, saying: Abraham believed God, and it was reputed to him to justice, and he was called the friend of God.

• James 2:21-23

I’ll let Origen explain:

I always wondered how Abraham could be justified AGAIN in Genesis 20:10 if he had already been forensically justified in Genesis 15:6. Origen’s explanation makes sense of why we don’t have the Protestant understanding of Justification in the early church. We have to work out our faith with fear and trembling. We can’t take our salvation for granted, we can’t presume our standing with God.

But what’s all this about “perfect faith”? Either you believe or you don’t, right? Is there a faith spectrum? I’ll let Origen answer that:

Even though the Israelites believed in God and Moses the majority of them fell in the desert.

For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea: And did all eat the same spiritual food, And all drank the same spiritual drink; (and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.) But with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the desert.

• 1 Corinthians 10:1-5

They did not possess the perfection of faith as Origen said, and perished in the desert as a result. The fact that our faith needs to grow helps explain why the Apostles would ask for their faith to be increased and why Jesus would compare faith to a mustard seed (Luke 17:5-6), an analogy that demonstrates that faith needs to grow over time. If your faith fails to grow, well, there’s consequences. A lack of faith will get you chopped off of the tree of life, as Origen exegetes from the following passage:

And if some of the branches be broken, and thou, being a wild olive, art ingrafted in them, and art made partaker of the root, and of the fatness of the olive tree, Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then: The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well: because of unbelief they were broken off. But thou standest by faith: be not highminded, but fear.

Romans 11:17-20

Interesting that Paul admonishes those of us who believe by faith to fear, which matches his similar admonitions in 1 Corinthians 9:27 and Philippians 2:12. Here’s Origen’s take on this passage:

The reason we don’t boast, the reason we don’t take our justification by Faith Alone for granted is because we can lose our salvation. The Israelites had Faith Alone initially (Exodus 14:31), but that Faith Alone didn’t end up saving them. The natural branches were not spared. Neither will we be spared if fail to abide.

Thank you Origen for this wonderful, thought provoking commentary on Romans. Other may not appreciate you, but I appreciate you.

In the second article I considered the accusations of Origen’s supposed heresies, and I found them lacking:

With those out of the way I’d like to consider what Origen has to say regarding 2 important issues for me; Predestination and Justification. Both of these topics are covered by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans. What did Origen take Paul’s words to mean? Is Origen’s understanding of Romans more in line with a particular Protestant denomination? Catholic? Did Origen believe in doctrines like Double Predestination or Faith Alone?

I grew up as a Reformed Protestant which highly stresses Faith Alone and Predestination. Reformed Protestants are a particular set of denominations that place a high emphasis on the sovereignty of God. They believe in doctrines like Limited Atonement, that Christ only died for His elect, not the reprobate or the damned. All things happen according to God’s will. Nothing happens without God signing off on it, including your loved ones’ reprobation. But don’t worry; you’ll be so sanctified when you get to heaven that you’ll take joy in the eternal torment of your reprobate loved ones!

No, that’s not hyperbole, that’s a real Calvinist teaching:

You might find this teaching horrifying, but Catholics should take pause: there’s Double Predestination in Catholicism too:

Before we go too far down this rabbit hole let’s ask; what did Origen take Paul to mean when Paul spoke on Predestination?

Funny enough, Origen seems to have been motivated to write his commentary by certain heretics who taught a peculiar doctrine regarding Predestination. This group of Gnostics taught that there were 3 categories of people:

1) The ones with a "spiritual" nature have access to the gnosis of salvation because Jesus gave it to them before the foundation of world was established.

2) The ones with a "soulish" nature were members of the church who have access to salvation through faith and good works

3) The ones with a "natural" nature have no chance at salvation since Jesus does not give them the gnosis.

With my Calvinist background, I immediately made a connection between the “spiritual” nature with the elect, and the “natural” nature with the reprobate. Calvinists don’t really recognize the “soulish” class that these heretics believed in. But Calvinists do share this idea that before the foundation of the world God gave different people certain natures, and these natures were not given based on any future merits. God, according to His own will and purpose, selects the “spiritual”-elect and damns the “natural”-reprobate.

Origen has these heretics in mind as he introduces his audience to his commentary:

Origen is deeply concerned that Christians will chalk up their salvation to fate and neglect to undergo the necessary works that ensure they stay grafted into the tree of life. If the Apostle Paul is concerned about the state of his own soul:

But I chastise my body, and bring it into subjection: lest perhaps, when I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway.

• 1 Corinthians 9:27

Then Origen wants Christians to stay vigilant about the state of their own souls as well.

Aha, so Origen taught that God didn’t use predestination, He saves those whom He knew were going to do good works? Origen was a Pelagian heretic then!

Not so fast.

We’ll get into Origen’s supposed Pelagian leanings in the next article when we tackle Justification, but it’s clear from his commentary on Romans that he did not believe anyone could do good works without God giving them the grace to do it:

Alright so which is it? Does God predestine us based on what we do, or does He randomly predestine His elect and randomly passes over the reprobate? And further, how does Origen dance around this cut and dry passage in Romans:

For when the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil (that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand,) Not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said to her: The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated.

• Romans 9:11-13

How does Origen escape the only logical conclusion, that Jacob was elected and Esau passed over because God wanted to, not because of anything Jacob and Esau did or wanted?

Before we address this point, let’s look at Origen addressing Predestination in an earlier passage, called by Calvinists the “Golden Chain of Redemption”:

And we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good, to such as, according to his purpose, are called to be saints. For whom he foreknew, he also predestinated to be made conformable to the image of his Son; that he might be the firstborn amongst many brethren. And whom he predestinated, them he also called. And whom he called, them he also justified. And whom he justified, them he also glorified.

• Romans 8:28-30

Again we see God’s sovereignty at work in the plan of salvation. Those whom God calls He predestines. The predestined are called, justified and glorified. This formula demonstrates that man plays no role in their salvation.

Except there’s a tiny detail we’re glossing over that Origen wants the Nature Heretics to respond too. Who does God predestine again? Those He FOREKNEW. Origen asks; if God predestined everyone irrespective of their choices then how does God’s foreknowledge play any role at all in His election process? It makes no sense for God to use His knowledge of the future if He’s already made the decision of who is saved and damned. The fact that foreknowledge PRECEDES predestination should give everyone pause before asserting that this passage demonstrates that man’s free will is not a factor that God considers in his plan of salvation.

Ok Origen, then what do you do with this passage?

Thou wilt say therefore to me: Why doth he then find fault? For who resisteth his will? O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus? Or hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction, That he might shew the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he hath prepared unto glory?

• Romans 9:19-23

If the Golden Chain passage didn’t convince you that man’s free will play absolutely no role in your salvation, then how do you escape the fact that God creates vessels for honor and vessels for wrath? If you were predestined to be a vessel of honor, great! If you were predestined to be a vessel of wrath, well too bad but there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s already been predestined.

Origen points out that this isn’t the only time that Paul uses the “honorable/dishonorable vessel” metaphor. Origen points to this other passage:

But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and earth: and some indeed unto honour, but some unto dishonour.

• 2 Timothy 2:20

Now if Paul believed that you had no choice as to what type of vessel you are, whether you were predestined for honorable or dishonorable use, then why does Paul then go on to give the following directions?

If any man therefore shall cleanse himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified and profitable to the Lord, prepared unto every good work. But flee thou youthful desires, and pursue justice, faith, charity, and peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. And avoid foolish and unlearned questions, knowing that they beget strifes. But the servant of the Lord must not wrangle: but be mild towards all men, apt to teach, patient, With modesty admonishing them that resist the truth: if peradventure God may give them repentance to know the truth, And they may recover themselves from the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will.

• 2 Timothy 2:21-26

Origen asks us; if Paul truly taught that God has already made His election and there’s nothing you or I can do about it, then why would he give Timothy these directions showing us how to turn ourselves from a dishonorable vessel to an honorable vessel?

Jacob was chosen, not because of his works, Origen points how Paul makes it undeniably clear that works are not the basis of salvation. God had foreknowledge of Jacob’s “purity” and elected Jacob to persevere based on Jacob’s purity. Esau was passed over due to God’s foreknowledge of Esau’s lack of repentance.

Now wait a minute, you might be saying, which is it? Does God elect based on our merits or based on His own purposes? It seems like Origen wants it both ways. He wants to affirm Paul and say that our election is not based on our works, but then he talks about “soul purity”, that God bases His election upon His foreknowledge of us choosing Him. Well isn’t that merit-based, us choosing God?

But if we were to grant this premise, that our choosing God is a merit that compels Him to elect us, then we’re back at our earlier conundrum, “What does God foreknow before He predestinates us?” Remember, Paul placed “foreknow” before “predestine” in the “Golden Chain of Redemption”. We know it’s not our works that God is foreknowing since we cannot merit our salvation. So what is it?

Origen’s solution seems to say it’s not works, but our response to the free gift of grace that’s the deciding factor. God gives grace to the world freely and predestines those whom He foreknows responds to the gift of grace. But the gifts of faith and perseverance are not given randomly, nor is it impossible to be given the gift of faith and perseverance if we sincerely ask. Even St. Augustine, the doctor of the Church who really formalized our understanding of predestination affirms as much:

It’s interesting that St. Augustine was NOT a proponent of “once saved, always saved”, since here he is admonishing his readers to pray the Lord’s Prayer fervently in order to, among other things, beseech the Lord for the gift of perseverance. God answers prayer, He’s not bound to reject someone whom He’s endowed with a “natural” reprobate nature. We can ask for the gift of perseverance and have faith that God will hear and answer us.

In my studying of Origen’s commentary I’ve come across plenty of arguments that pit Origen vs. Augustine. Origen was “the first Pelagian” who downplayed God’s sovereignty in regards to our salvation, and afterwards Augustine had to clean up the Church’s soteriology against the Pelagian heretics who took Origen’s arguments to their logical conclusions. It’s important to remember that Origen and Augustine were battling 2 different types of heretics.

Augustine was fighting Pelagians who insisted that man could compel God to save them through good works.

Origen was fighting Nature Gnostics who insisted that God never intended to save the reprobate.

Nature Gnostics and Pelagians are on 2 completely opposite ends of the Soteriology spectrum. Does that mean that Augustine agreed with Origen’s take on Predestination? I’ll let Augustinians answer that question. I’m sure they would have a problem with Origen’s proposal, that God foreknows the “soul purity” and uses that foreknowledge to elect them. But it’s important to remember that Origen was not a Pelagian heretic, he makes it very clear that nobody is saved because of their works and every work we engage in is itself a gift from God.

I can’t help but wonder though; if Origen had come across me during my Calvinist days, if he would hand his commentary on Romans to help cure my Calvinism.

He believed in the pre-existence of souls. He castrated himself, a practice that was later condemned at Nicea. He was an unrepentant Universalist who believed that everyone went to heaven one day. Sure, we can consider cutting him some slack since he lived at a time when the Bible hadn’t been formally canonized yet. But a heretic is a heretic, and we must condemn Origen for the heretical hereises he espoused.

There’s one glaring problem with the above; the only accusation of heresy above that can be verified from Origen’s surviving writings is his belief in the pre-existence of souls. All of the other accusations I mentioned are heresies that we cannot find Origen formally teaching in any of his writings we have today.

It was with these heresies in mind that I read Origen’s commentary on Romans, looking to see if I could find him teaching or alluding to these supposed errors of his. Some have called the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans the “Cathedral of the Christian Faith” due to its breadth, its systematic approach in describing the Christian faith. If Origen was an unrepentant heretic then we should expect to see him at least attempting to subtly sneak in if not outright teaching such heresies whilst reviewing Romans.

Paul does not mention castration specifically, so I wasn’t expecting to find Origen’s opinion on self castration. However Origen addresses Matthew 19:12 twice in this commentary. This is the verse where Jesus says:

For there are eunuchs, who were born so from their mother's womb: and there are eunuchs, who were made so by men: and there are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it.

• Matthew 19:12

For members of the early church who felt self castration was a biblically mandated practice, this verse was their prooftext. Did Origen understand this verse to mean that especially holy men were to castrate themselves?

Clearly Origen does not condemn the practice in the above. Yet he also does not separate his understanding of Matthew 19:12 from his larger point about circumcision being primarily a spiritual enterprise both within the old and new covenants. We cut ourselves off from the old man of sin, we circumcise our old ways. This begs the question; wouldn’t it be reasonable to expect that if Origen was a teacher who felt that self castration was a biblical practice, then wouldn’t he use this opportunity to encourage other Christian men to undertake this practice here?

He cites Matthew 19:12 one more time in his commentary on Romans. He addresses those who argue that it makes no sense for God to create something that was supposed to be cut off through circumcision:

Here’s Origen’s more explicit stamp of approval. But even this approval seems sort of backhanded. “These people” are able to justify this practice through “many saints and even in the Lord Jesus himself”. Why does he remove himself from the conversation and only refers to “those who” engage in self castration? Again, wouldn’t we expect a self castration heretic to be encouraging others to do the same? Saying, “those who decide to castrate themselves can justify this practice through certain saints and Jesus’ words” is not at all the same thing as, “You should be holy like me and castrate yourself as our Lord commanded.”

What about Universalism, the heresy that teaches everyone goes to heaven in the end? Do we find Origen trying to covertly sneak this heresy into his commentary on Romans?

Again, Paul doesn’t really speak about Universalism or Apokatastasis in Romans. The proof text Universalists like to cite is Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians:

And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then the Son also himself shall be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

• 1 Corinthians 15:28

How does this verse demonstrate Universalism? The Apokatastasis, the restoration that’s alluded to here is key. Will all things be subdued and restored? Will God be all in all, inside everything, every single living thing? Everything would seem to imply people other than Christians. Everything also leaves the door open for all rational beings being restored to God, even the Devil and his angels.

Origen does comment on this passage a couple of times, but it’s a stretch to say that he took this passage to mean Universalism.

Can we take this to mean that Origen thought EVERYONE was going to have their iniquities blotted out and be fully restored to God? If God blots out iniquities so He can destroy sinful humanity so that theosis can begin, I mean, that seems sort of universalish if we assume that Origen had every human being and not just exclusively christians in mind.

Which makes other quotes from Origen like the below seem so jarring in comparison.

This quote seems like Origen is describing Limited Atonement, the idea that Christ’s death was only for the saved or the elect. Given everything else Origen says about Justification and Salvation in this commentary and elsewhere, any claim that Origen believed in such a doctrine would be dubious at best. But the point remains; how could a supposed Universalist talk about Jesus’ atoning death in an exclusive manner? Wouldn’t a Christian Universalist or an “Origenist” argue that Jesus died for everyone and therefore is saving everyone regardless?

Origen also seems to assume the doctrine of Purgatory while looking at Isaiah 1:25:

Christians run the risk of spending a long time in Purgatory according to Origen. He also wonders if we run the risk of spending multiple ages in Purgatory, which is a terrifying thought. But again, this doesn’t sound anything like the Universalism we hear of today that argues that hell and purgatory are not biblical. Origen clearly thought these were real dangers, even for Christians.

Origen also interprets the Parable of the 10 Virgins to mean even christians can fail to enter through the Door (John 10:9) if they do not have good works:

Also worth noting that, in regards to Origen’s supposed belief that the Devil would be redeemed in the Apokatastasis:

Does this mean that Origen’s take on Romans is inerrant or infallible? Of course not. But he’s an important enough Church Father that his works are cited several times in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Church does recommend caution when reading Origen, but it does appear that his supposed heresies have been misrepresented. Origen simply cannot hold the aforementioned heresies while teaching clearly the correct theology that contradicts those heresies.

In the next article we’ll look at how Origen reads Saint Paul’s teaching of predestination before we conclude this series with Origen’s understanding of Justification, the doctrine that led me too Origen to begin with.

Origen was less the crazy uncle of the Church and more a vitally important Church Father who helped to lay the groundwork for the doctrines, dogma and theology we all take for granted today. Nicea, Chalcedon, many of these ecumenical councils established the dogmas that protect our souls from damning errors. To utilize an American sort of analogy; these councils were settling the Wild West of Christian theology, laying the groundwork for others, the Augustines and Aquinases, to properly formalize the civilising dogmas we rest upon today. If Nicea was the Wild West, then Origen was one of the great Frontiersmen, men who ventured into the great unknown before the maps that described the wildness of the Wild West even existed.

To fault Origen for getting the pre-existence of souls wrong, to flippantly and falsely attribute Universalism to him, to write off our first textual critic and exegete as a heretic is, I believe, not just robbing the modern Church of a rich and influential resource. We fail to keep the Commandments by not honoring this Church Father. We should seriously reconsider the teachings and beliefs of Origen as Origen describes them and take his supposed heresies with multiple grains of salt.

So why did I, a Catechumen of the Catholic Church, decide to pick up Origen’s commentary on Paul’s letter to the Roman Church?

It’s a bit of a long story, so I’ll do my best to describe this twisted, gnarled path I’ve taken as short and succinctly as possible. The TL;DR: I was trying to understand the doctrine of Justification.

I was a revert to my Reformed Protestant upbringing. That’s another story in an of itself.

I was doing great, completely happy with the Reformed Christianity that I grew up with. I didn’t start having problems until I was asked to lead a Bible study. Some guys at church were leading a Christian program for people with drug and alcohol addictions, a sort of halfway house. They thought it would be great idea for me to lead the Sunday night Bible study. I immediately declined; as a recent revert to the faith I had no business teaching anybody anything about Christianity. But they persisted, and I relented.

I undertook the teaching role with great trepidation:

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.”

• James 3:1

My teaching strategy was very simple. We would read large swaths of Scripture. Instead of taking a handful of verses and everyone talking about what those verses did or didn’t mean to them, I decided we would take turns reading entire sections and chapters of the Bible in a single sitting. If a New Testament author cited an Old Testament passage, then we’re going to stop and look up that Old Testament passage. Don’t know who the Son of Man is? Let’s go to Daniel 7 and read about it!

One of my favorite sessions was when we read Psalm 22 in conjunctions with St Mark’s account of the crucifixion (page 13). One of the volunteer mentors told me afterward, “You know, I’ve been doing bible studies for a very long time, but I never knew that Jesus was citing Scripture on the cross.” Those types of comments absolutely made my day. Let’s let scripture talk about itself, and more importantly get me out of the way! I don’t want to misstep and teach something incorrect and become the epitome of the Apostle James’ aforementioned warning.

One day after we read Psalm 119 in its entirety (Yep, all 176 verses!) I received a new kind of feedback that at the time really floored me. One of the volunteer mentors seemed really deep in thought after the closing prayer, and I approached him to ask what was on his mind.

He looked up and said, “Everything you taught tonight was wrong.”

I didn’t know what to say. Everything? I mean, we had 1 hour and we read 176 verses of Scripture, I didn’t really have time to teach much of anything. What was it I said that was so wrong?

I drew this man’s ire by my failure to correct the Psalmist’s insistence that we keep God’s law. If you go and read Psalm 119, you’ll realize this Psalm is inundated with “I shall keep your statues”, “Teach me your statutes”, “I will meditate on your precepts”, and most offensively, “Oh, how I love your law!”. I didn’t add the understanding that as New Covenant Christians we were not required to keep God’s law. We weren’t obligated to obey God the way the Psalmist was. The Psalmist was under the law. We are under grace.

Without going down an Antinomianism rabbit hole, I was a bit stumped at this pushback. I mean, if we are saved by faith alone, then what does “good works” or obedience have to do with anything? Are New Testament Christians required to obey God? Was this guy right?

A friend recommended an excellent book.

Which led me to write this Twitter Thead:

I recommend reading the thread, but to summarize I was really frustrated with McGrath’s conclusions, which among other things posited that:

• Because so many Protestant theologians disagree with what Paul meant by Justification, we cannot say with full confidence that we understand the doctrine of Justification according to Paul.

• Given all of the different interpretations by many holy and reasonable men, we may never know what Paul meant when he spoke on Justification.

This was baffling on a number of levels. I can understand why Christians might disagree about different doctrines taught in the Bible, even important things like infant baptism. But Justification, or how we get right with God? There’s too many interpretations of Paul to understand with a confident certainty how to get saved? This cannot be.

Which led me to ask; did the early church have a singular understanding of Justification? Through another series of book recommendations I ended up with Origen’s Commentary on the Book of Romans.

Origen causes a lot of consternation among Christians. I recommend this video for one of the best explanations as to why even church fathers found Origen divisive.

Origen was accused of being a heretic, specifically a universalist, albeit three centuries after he died. But to say that he died a heretic is to ignore the reported evidence to the contrary, including St. Rufinus citing the authority of the Pope in Origin’s exoneration.

So who exactly was Origen? In many respects he is one of our first exegetes. He wrote the first full commentary on Romans. He was also one of the first church fathers to be fully fluent in Greek and Hebrew, a distinction usually made for Saint Jerome. Origen used these skills to provide one our first ever textual criticisms of the Bible, of which we’ve unfortunately lost a lot of.

A Christian in the 21st century has a lot of resources that most Christians in ages past simply didn’t have. Even the literacy with which we can read councils, encyclicals and church fathers is a gift that most of our ancestors went without. Origen passed away in 254 A.D. a martyr, and long before the first post apostolic ecumenical council was even held. He did not have the privilege of using ecumenical councils to help define the dogmas and truth that he was attempting to discern.

It may sound like I’m buttering you up before I disclose the material heresy I discovered in Origen’s commentary on Romans. I’m not because I didn’t find one. In my humble opinion as a layperson, Origen seems to describe a cogent and orthodox understanding of Paul’s epistle. I admit that there is room for speculation on his supposed semi-pelagianism, nor does he always talk about separation from God after death in eternal terms. However to say that he was a universalist is to ignore the very real danger he describes as coming from an unorthodox knowledge of God. This may be why he earned the nickname “Adamantius", the "man of steel", a nickname Eusebius notes Origen held due to his firmness against heretics. Ironic that a heretic smasher would be more renowned as a heretic for his legacy instead of heretic smashing.

Origen was adamant that the Bible did not contradict itself and instead provided a singular cogent testimony:

His humility with which he offers his interpretations of scripture:

Ask yourself; does the following quote sound like any Universalist you know?:

In future articles I will delve more deeply into the following topics about Origen’s commentary on Romans:

1. What did Origen have to say about Justification?

2. Was Origen a “Universalist” in any sense of the word?

3. What other doctrines do we find affirmed by Origen as accepted by the early Church?

I’m so grateful that I live in an era where we can access the Scriptures, the Fathers, all of these resources to better enlighten us to true and orthodox theology. I hope and pray that these articles are thought provoking and edifying for you as well.