Customer Reviews

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church

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First, keep in mind that this work was published in 1981. Secondly, keep in mind that this is not about current scandals or conspiracies in the Church. If you are expecting a lot of discussion from Malachi Martin on the latest intrigue and outrage at Vatican II, this is not that book.

Here is what the book is.

Martin begins the book with a brief narration of the state of the Church pre-312. Then, he points out that Pope Silvester's deal with Emperor Constantine was the beginning of the Roman Catholic Church's troubles. By allowing the Church to become intertwined with the affairs of the Empire, the Church became chained to this temporal world's affairs and drawbacks, and incidentally, the papacy has become corrupted by the whole process.
Then, from that point, Martin points out various examples of how the Church has become corrupted throughout history. Several amazing episodes that intrigued me can be found on page 109 (the story of the perverted 12-year old Pope, Theophylact), pages 124-125 (the account of cardinal Cesare Borgia, who wore a mask to hide a deformity, employed a personal assassin, was bisexual, and assassinated his own brother), and page 182 (the lack of attention to Martin Luther, due to overconcern with the imperial power of the Church's papal states). I was surprised to see that Martin didn't cover the Crusades much, but that's a different topic altogether, I guess.
Toward the end of the book, in the final section titled Decline and Fall, Martin brings attention to the Church's situation in the last century. It is at this point that you become grateful to Martin for having shown you the previous centuries of Church history. You can view the Church's modern plight in the context of its imperfect history.
Now, in this last section, Malachi Martin does not bring on condemning remarks about Pope John Paul II, and he is hesitant to criticize Pope John XXIII for the post-modern revisions of Vatican II. Rather, Martin sums up the entire downward movement of the Church, likening it to a snowball rolling down a mountain, rolling out of control after a certain point in history. (Martin really did a great job illustrating Napoleon's role in the West's secularization, by the way.)

Ultimately, this is a great book. It is great because it is well written, well thought out, and tied together nicely. In addition, any time a person can get an opportunity to hear Malachi Martin's take on Church history, they should take it! Martin has a unique perspective on these matters, and he is worth your attention.
As you can probably tell by the Amazon.com prices for used copies, it is rather expensive. I'm guessing that this is a bit of a rare book. Somehow, I managed to pre-order my copy, and I got it for $12. The copy I got was a novel-sized paperback that was about 260 pages. The price on the spine of my book was $3.95! This little thing is surely not worth $70! Yet, buy it if you must--though I'd encourage you to search the libraries first.
If you absolutely must have a book of Malachi Martins, I'd suggest Hostage to the Devil. Decline and the Fall of the Roman Church is more of an accessory than anything. It is not as much as a necessity as his other books.

_The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church_ by the late traditionalist Roman Catholic priest Father Malachi Martin is a fascinating account of the history of the church progressing from the earliest beginnings to Constantine's eventual relationship with the church during the reign of Pope Silvester I up until the post Vatican II popes and Pope John Paul II. The book shows the transformations that took place in the papacy as the relationship between temporal power and spiritual authority was worked out throughout the years. Also, the book shows how the early popes were chosen, including how many were appointed by kings or their predecessors (often involving intrigue and poisonings), up until the invention of the conclave. While the Roman Popes certainly were not impeccable, their spiritual authority in matters of faith and morals is guarranteed by the words of Christ himself. Much of this book is spent reviewing the many scandals and intrigues of the popes who often acted in a manner more befitting a petty despot than the spiritual authority of the world's strongest religion. Father Malachi Martin's thesis is that the church exists in a state of steady decline, brought about by a defection from its true principles, and an abandonment of spiritual authority for temporal power. Indeed, the sins of man are many, due to his fallen nature, and throughout the centuries they have come to corrode the very structures upon which Christ built his church. This book, written in 1981 is somewhat dated but its prophecy for the coming decades remains valid. The complications which have arisen since the Second Vatican Counsel, the brazen disobedience of Christ's supposed faithful to the authority of the pope and his predecessors, the collusion of the hierarchy with liberalism, modernism, and Marxist revolution, and the moral decline of the modern age are issues which currently confront the church more than ever. Perhaps the modern age can be made sense of in terms of prophecy by rereading those prophecies of the saints which reveal a hidden meaning behind historical events. I regret only that the author did not provide adequate footnotes to his book so that his facts could be checked against standard sources. He appears to take some liberty with things that may be unjustifiable. Nevertheless, for its important remarks concerning the coming and continuing crises within the church (recently brought to light in the many scandals among the priesthood and the hierarchy) this book remains of fundamental interest to all who want to understand the history and progression of the Roman Catholic Church and its papacy.

As a Catholic, I found Dr. Martin's book to be bracing, and yet it never denies that the Catholic Church is truly the institution founded by Christ. Indeed, the first pope(St.Peter) denied Christ three times, and one of the first bishops betrayed his Master and committed suicide!Ultimately, the Church needs to return to the ideal of it's founder, and reject temporal power in exchange for the power of the Spirit.

Excellent book. It dishes the dirty laundry of the Papacy. Recommended reading for everyone who is interested in the Catholic church and its history.

Fr. Malachi Martin's main contention in this book is that, starting with the Emperor Constantine's legalization of Christianity in 313, the Catholic Church made a Faustian Bargain with "the world" and temporal power which undermined its spiritual authority, hindered its Gospel mission and corrupted its hierarchy at its heart.

I'm not too sure about Fr. Martin's thesis, but he writes a fascinating history of the Papal reigns at what he considers key moments in the development of Rome's progressive political seduction. Unfortunately, the complete lack of footnotes, the fictional prose style and the invented dialogue make me seriously wonder how much is fact and how much is historical fiction. For instance, he writes about a meeting between Pope Sylvester I and the Desposyni (the blood descendants of Jesus, a real, historically attested group) but every single one of the references to that meeting that I can find on the web cite this book as their only source. There were many other such historical tidbits in this book next to which I wrote a big question mark, but the main facts are true (although Martin frequently writes less like a Catholic priest who wants to reform the Church than some fire-breathing combination of Martin Luther, Jan of Leyden and Ian Paisley. The catalog of Papal depravity just gets annoying after a while. We get the bloody point!). The Catholic Church throughout history has wielded significant temporal power. Whether wielding such power was avoidable or whether it was necessarily a completely negative thing is another debate.

As to whether gaining such power was avoidable, I don't really see how. Fr. Martin seems to regret the accommodation with Constantine and the state. Wasn't that a_good_thing!? A miraculous sign from God convinced Constantine to lift the prohibition on Christianity, which theretofore had been fertilizing the Roman Empire with the blood of its martyrs. Wasn't the legalization and promulgation of the Faith something to be prayed for and be thankful for? Was the Pope supposed to reject Constantine's offer and elect to have Christians remain outlaws and prey? Martin's regretful tone seems silly. As for the Church's later political powers, we really can't judge the Dark Ages by late 20th century standards. When the Western Roman Empire collapsed under barbarian attack, some entity had to fill the power vacuum and the Papacy was the only authority around which the people could rally. Was it not the Papacy that retained some vestige of order, civilization and European cohesiveness after the fall of Rome? It was not until after WWII that Europe began to resemble a civilized polity devoted to the rule of law. Despite its magnificent cultural achievements, for all its history Europe was a blood-soaked Darwinian jungle, red of tooth and claw, where the weak were consumed and only the strong survived. What else could the Papacy do in such an environment but acquire lands and wealth and make military alliances? Even a Papacy dependent only on its spiritual authority would still have been prey for violent rulers who would have sought to control, manipulate or intimidate that authority. Look at the kidnapping and brainwashing of the defenseless Pius VIII by Napoleon, and the attempts- often successful- that countless other temporal rulers made to dominate so many bishops and prelates who didn't have an army at their backs (Thomas A. Becket?). Also, a solely spiritual Papacy would not necessarily have prevented the splintering of Christianity during the Reformation. To be sure, the ultimate success of the Reformation came about because of the greed of the princes for the Church's wealth and their outrage over the Church's political interference, but the destruction of religious unity probably would have happened anyway in a world with the printing press. The Church's worldly sins only hastened it. Also, self-interested rulers like Henry VIII would still have broken with the Church and pursued their own realpolitik, even if the Pope were just a poor hermit living in a cave.

In any case, Fr. Martin misses the larger point. So, the Church has had bad Popes. That's embarrassing but not relevant to the whole idea behind the Church, which is that, despite the personal failings of men, the Holy Spirit would ensure that the Vicar of Christ and the Church would transmit true doctrine through the generations. While the crimes of the Popes certainly haven't helped the Church's reputation, those crimes don't deserve more than a curious glance from the Faithful. I'm reminded of the delightful story in Boccaccio's Decameron about the Jew who went to Rome. With the rotten leadership we've had, the Church must have a supernatural protector for it to have not only survived this long but flourished. : )

So, in the final analysis, I think Martin's lament is both somewhat fatuous and untimely. Fatuous, for the reasons I listed above, and untimely because the Church has not had real temporal power since the 1870s. The total liquid wealth of the Vatican is estimated to be somewhere around 1 billion dollars today, which is nothing compared to, say, Starbucks or even Burger King. This issue has been moot for over 100 years. Why did Martin write this book? Even if Martin's thesis were true at one time, it is irrelevant today. Also, his last few chapters regarding the Papacies of Paul VI and John Paul II seem somewhat unconnected with the rest of the book. Do the Church's current problems have anything whatsoever to do with its history of temporal power? I really didn't see the point. So, in summary, I don't think this is a very valuable book outside of its historical nuggets. I think the only people who would get anything out of it are those who get off on the lurid "anti-Papist" stories in Chick comic tracts. Catholics, or even readers searching for a logical point, will be disappointed.

This is one of the most informative books that I have read on the rise of the papal political power.

The breezy style of this minor Malachi Martin book has its plusses and minuses. It makes it quick and readable, and a good introduction to his recurring theme concerning the politicization of the papacy. It gives you some witty historical observations too, but one feels that Malachi may have been more seriously occupied during this book's making, that it was something easy for him to dash off.

All said, the last two chapters concerning Pius 12 and John Paul 2 are important missing pieces to Malachi's chronicles of the modern papacy. The Pius 12 chapter indeed contains significant information on both that pope's encounter with Marxism and his visionary life. Martin, as protege to Pius' confidante Father (later Cardinal) Augustine Bea, is certainly a valid source for this information -- which also has a lot to say about Pius' overall vision of contemporary history -- which, in turn, lies beneath the continuing "Pius War" now raging in the print world. The JP2 concluding chapter is important as Malachi's initial take on that pontiff, which would change more than once during a long pontificate. It needs to be read in conjunction with both the novel Vatican and the long meditation The Keys of this Blood.

This book only increased my respect for a great writer, Malachi Martin. Anyone concerned with the decline of religion in the western world should take a lesson from this book and apply it in their lives, both public and private. We don't have to live with the mistakes of the past unless we want to. End of lecture.

As a nonCatholic, I found this book fascinating and extremely readable, which is a wonder in itself. If I were Catholic, I think this book would disturb me with how much corruption has pervaded the Catholic church for centuries. There have been truly truly evil Popes...and they commited their sins in the name of Christ. Hypocrisy oozes from page after page. A Fascinating book

I bought the book in '81 and found it absolutely fascinating; witnessed the death of Morozia (you have to read about HER!) and learned that the trouble all started with Gregory the First, when he acquired the first land for the Church. For the first millenium, the Church thrived on the good will of it's members and with no visible means of support, managed to become the most in- fluential religious force in the world. The difference for today? In the old days, you told John the Baptist you wanted to know God; he dragged you into the creek and Baptised you-- and there you are! Today, you go through accusatorial investigations of your family history and pay fee after fee, --the Church has become like the money changers in the Temple who were chased out by Jesus! Not a good thing.