New film asks: Was Malachi Martin an exorcist or an exhibitionist?
The documentary "Hostage to the
Devil" lets viewers make their own judgments about whether the
controversial former priest and best-selling author was a sinner or
saint, an exorcist or showman, a prophet or sophist.
A new film has as its subject Malachi Martin, an Irishman who was, by
turns, Jesuit priest, professor at a Pontifical Institute in Rome,
layman, bestselling author, talk show guest, celebrity. From the 1970s,
he also claimed to be part of an underground network of unofficial
‘exorcists’. As charismatic as he would prove beguiling, as intellectual
as he appeared pious, Martin was, above all, controversial, and remains
so to this day, as this film testifies.