Joseph J. Martos

Joseph Martos is a nationally recognized authority on the sacraments of the Catholic Church and one of the few people in the world who understand how symbols work in human consciousness and society. His book on the history and theology of sacraments, "Doors to the Sacred," has been in print for almost four decades and has been used in hundreds of university and seminary courses. He is regularly invited to speak and teach about religious rituals and the spiritual realities to which they refer. In 2009, he updated an earlier book, inviting readers to think about their personal experiences and to look at church ceremonies from a variety of perspectives. "The Sacraments: An Interdisciplinary and Interactive Study" has an accompanying website, www.TheSacraments.org, that offers historical and contemporary images of church rituals, probing questions about spiritual realities, and opportunities to contact the author via email. After years of research into the myriad of biblical, ancient and medieval texts on which the Catholic sacraments are based, Martos reluctantly concluded that they are not what the church claims about them. The sacramental rituals do not do what they are suppose to do, and their theological explanations do not hold up under historical investigation. "Deconstructing Sacramental Theology and Reconstructing Catholic Ritual" proves its case using almost 900 footnotes, many in Greek and Latin. To make the book's discoveries and arguments available to a wider audience, Martos wrote "Honest Ritual, Honest Sacraments" in plain language and without scholarly references. The last chapters of both books, however, suggest a way forward for religious rituals in the future, one that matches the authenticity of Christian living with the authenticity of symbolic ceremonies. Email address for readers: TheSacraments@Gmail.com