Cyril Charlie Martindale (1879–1963) was a

Roman Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

, scholar, and writer. Along with

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, he was one of England's foremost Catholics of the first half of the 20th century, and was a correspondent of figures including

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, and

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Background and education

Cyril Martindale was born on 25 May 1879 in Bayswater, London to Arthur Martindale and Marion McKenzie. As a boy at Harrow School, he converted to Roman Catholicism from the Church of England. He entered the

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on 7 September 1897, beginning his novitiate at Manresa House in Roehampton before transferring to Aix-en-Provence, France due to ill health (a recurring theme throughout his career). After his novitiate he began Philosophy studies at St Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst and later moved on to Pope's Hall (later

Campion Hall Campion Hall is one of the five permanent private halls of the University of Oxford in England. It is run by the Society of Jesus and named after Edmund Campion, a martyr and fellow of St John's College, Oxford. The hall is located on Brewer S ...

) Oxford where he won multiple academic prizes, among them the Gaisford Prize (Greek verse) and the Chancellor's Prize (Latin verse).

Career and legacy

After spending his regency teaching for three years at Stonyhurst and Roehampton, Martindale undertook his theological studies at St Beuno's but was moved at the end of his second year to

Ore Place Ore Place are the ruins of a significant late medieval manor house in the northern outskirts of Hastings, East Sussex, England. The remaining parts of the building consist of walls up to 3m high and 0.7m thick and below ground archaeological rema ...

, Hastings (home of the exiled French Jesuits), being there ordained in 1911. Following his ordination Martindale returned to Oxford University for a position in the sub-faculty of Litterae Humaniores. According to Evelyn Waugh, he "dazzled and stimulated the most various undergraduates by his restless zeal, incisive diction, and by his modernity... ewas loaded with academic distinctions, but he held aloof from High Tables." He was likewise notable for his contributions as a champion of the Faith in debates in the

Oxford Union The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest ...

. In 1926, he was appointed by the Jesuit Provincial to organise the English Province's celebrations for the bi-centenary of Saints Aloysius and Stanislaus' canonisations. In 1927, he departed Oxford to take a position at Farm Street Church, but continued a busy career of travel and writing. In 1928 he made a trip to Australia and New Zealand to participate in the International Eucharistic Congress at Sydney, in the course of which he was involved car accident thereafter suffering from persistent headaches throughout his life. During the inter-war period and after, he was a member of the committee supervising Ronald Knox's translation of the Bible from the Latin Vulgate. Martindale was in Denmark at the outbreak of the Second World War, and was held as a German detainee in Copenhagen until its end, during which he "had the happiness of receiving a certain number of people into the Church." In the years following the Second World War, Martindale made two visits to Portugal, during which he conducted extensive research into the Miracle of Fátima, and published ''The Message of Fatima'' in 1950. He died in London on 18 March 1963. A collection of Martindale's papers is online via the Catholic Heritage website.

References

External links

Cyril Charlie Martindale
in the National Portrait Gallery (London). {{DEFAULTSORT:Martindale, Cyril 1879 births 1963 deaths 19th-century English people 20th-century English Jesuits 20th-century English Roman Catholic priests English Roman Catholic writers Contributors to the Catholic Encyclopedia