Malachi Martin’s Apocalyptic Nightmare

In his final book, Windswept House, published in 1996, the former Jesuit priest and Vatican insider Malachi Martin attempted to come to terms with the deepening disarray of the Catholic Church following the Second Vatican Council, 1962-1965. On two occasions I started Windswept House but gave up on the book each time because of Martin’s long-winded prose. I found it off-putting. The book is massive, a 646 page tome. As a writer I value economy of words and prefer authors who get straight to the point. Even so, Martin is too important a thinker to dismiss simply because one disapproves of his verbosity. On my third attempt I persisted for two hundred pages, at which point the manuscript caught fire in my hands. Although I ultimately found the book uneven—stretches of it are tedious—before the end I knew, or thought I knew, what had compelled Father Martin to write it. Windswept House is a labor of love. Credit the author for wrestling with the most urgent spiritual issues of our time. …