
Deconstructing Sacramental Theology and Reconstructing Catholic Ritual
Joseph Martos(Author)
Wipf & Stock Publishers
Published on 12. May 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
326 pages
978-1-4982-2179-5 (ISBN)
Description
Catholic sacramental doctrine has lost much of its credibility. Baptized people leave the church, adolescents stop attending shortly after they are confirmed, supposedly indissoluble marriages regularly dissolve, few go to confession, and many do not believe in transubstantiation.
Drawing upon his decades-long study of the sacraments, Martos reveals how teachings that seemed rooted in the scriptures and Catholic life have become unmoored from the contexts in which they arose, and why seemingly eternal truths are actually historically relative.
After carefully constructing Catholic teaching from the church's own documents, he deconstructs it by demonstrating how biblical passages were misconstrued by patristic authors and how patristic writings were misunderstood by medieval scholastics. The long process of misinterpretation culminated in the dogmatic pronouncements of the Council of Trent, which continues to dominate Catholic thinking about the church's religious ceremonies. If the sacraments are released from their dogmatic baggage, Martos believes that the spiritual realities they symbolize can be celebrated in any human culture without being tied to their traditional rites.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Eugene
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 254 mm
Width: 178 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
616 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4982-2179-5 (9781498221795)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
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Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
05/2015
Wipf and Stock Publishers
€37.49
Available for download
Person
Joseph Martos is a retired professor of philosophy and theology who has been a visiting professor or guest lecturer at more than two dozen universities and seminaries during his lengthy career. He is the author of Doors to the Sacred: A Historical Introduction to Sacraments in the Catholic Church (1981, 1991, 2001, 2014) and The Sacraments: An Interdisciplinary and Interactive Study (2009).