James J. Martin (born December 29, 1960) is an American Jesuit priest, writer, editor-at-large of America magazine and the founder of Outreach.
[9] He received his bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business in 1982 and was employed at General Electric in New York City and later at GE Capital in Stamford, Connecticut.
[10] Dissatisfied with the corporate world, and after viewing a documentary on the life of Trappist monk Thomas Merton, Martin became more deeply involved in the Catholic Church and entered the Society of Jesus (more commonly known as the Jesuits) in August 1988.
[14] On September 13, 2007, Martin appeared on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report to discuss Mother Teresa's fifty-year sense of abandonment by God which had much coverage in the media at the time.
[17] On March 18, 2010, Martin was invited to the program in the wake of Glenn Beck's suggestion that Catholics run away from priests who preach "social justice".
On August 10, 2011, Martin appeared on The Colbert Report to discuss God's "approval rating" and to promote his book The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life.
[28] His involvement with the 2005 stage production of The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, written by Stephen Adly Guirgis, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and featuring Sam Rockwell, John Ortiz, Eric Bogosian, and Callie Thorne, is the subject of Martin's book A Jesuit Off-Broadway: Center Stage with Jesus, Judas, and Life's Big Questions (Loyola Press, 2007).
He suggests: "It is as if producers, directors, playwrights and filmmakers feel obliged to establish their intellectual bona fides by trumpeting their differences with the institution that holds them in such thrall.
[32] The book quickly became a New York Times bestseller and Christopher Award winner,[33][34] and received positive reviews from a number of public figures including author Scott Hahn, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Beginning in 2015, Martin has led a number of pilgrimages to the Holy Land with America Media, inspired by the book and visiting many of the religious sites described therein.
[40][41] In a critique of the book, Cardinal Robert Sarah described Martin as "one of the most outspoken critics of the Church's message with regard to sexuality".
[48] Henderson on Witherspoon Institute's journal[49] and Dan Hitchens on First Things[50] have said that nowhere in his book has Martin affirmed the Church's magisterial teaching to be true.
"[51] Archbishop Chaput has also described many of the attacks against Martin as "bitterness" that is "unjust and unwarranted," while still calling for "serious, legitimate criticism" of the book's "perceived ambiguities" and inadequacies.
[56] Bishop Paprocki described Martin's attitude as "deeply scandalous in the sense of leading people to believe that wrongful behavior is not sinful.
Flynn wrote that "every initiative" recommended by Martin, such as "Lavender graduation" or "L.G.B.T spiritualities, theologies, liturgies and safe spaces", was designed "to affirm the lie that sexual inclination or orientation is, in itself, identity".
[59] In December 2023, when Pope Francis published the declaration Fiducia supplicans, that allowed priests to give non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples, Martin, described the declaration as "a major step forward in the church's ministry to LGBTQ people" and demonstrated the church affirming same-sex couples' desire "for God's presence and help in their committed and loving relationships".
In July 2022 Pope Francis issued a letter in response encouraging Catholics to foster a "culture of encounter" that "shortens distances and enriches us with differences, in the same manner as Jesus, who made himself close to everyone."
[4][5] In 2019, Martin criticized the public denials of Holy Communion to several politicians, including Joe Biden, based on their support for abortion, and to a woman who had contracted a same-sex civil marriage in the Diocese of Grand Rapids.
[69] Several Catholic authors and priests criticized Martin's interpretation of canon 915 which forbids the administration of Holy Communion to those who persist in manifest grave sin.