Ignatius Press at Forty

Book publishing is both an act of faith and a throwing of the dice.

A table of Ignatius Press books at the 40th anniversary celebration held in San Francisco the weekend of November 2-3, 2018. (Photo: Joey Zarate)

In a celebration in St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco this past November, the founders, staff, and several authors recalled the many books and initiatives that have poured forth from that dynamic and innovative source of insight and wisdom known as Ignatius Press. Since its founding in 1978, the Press has published some 39 million books. Today it is also into movies, home and online schooling, periodicals, liturgical music, novels, and a number of web sites, including Catholic World Report.

The founder and director of the Press, Father Joseph Fessio, S.J., is a man of vision, good sense, and intellectual insight. Fr. Fessio is a man of many, many parts. Rumor has it that he was a hippie of sorts in his college days at Santa Clara. He studied under Joseph Ratzinger in Germany; he knew Henri de Lubac, S.J., in France. In recent decades, he also doubles as a gentleman farmer, following a way of life not unlike that described by Cicero in his famous essay “On Old Age.” Thus, he grows grapes, makes his own wine, plants vegetables, and is known to have shot a wild critter or two up in Sonoma County. Along the way, he founded the St. Ignatius Institute, sponsored a seminary in Rome, an orphanage in Mexico, and even worked some housing experiments for the poor. Against many odds, he has managed to fashion a first-class press that publishes a wide range of books on all things Catholic—intelligently Catholic. He has even designed and directed the construction of a new Ignatius Press distribution center in Illinois.

If I asked myself what has been the most influential single source of Catholic intelligence in the last forty years in this country, several candidates come to mind. We could name Thomas Aquinas College, the Focus Movement, the Cardinal Newman Society, the male and female Dominicans, the Philosophy Department at the Catholic University of America, First Things, Archbishop Charles Chaput, the Opus Dei enterprises, George Weigel, EWTN, Robert Spitzer’s Magis Institute, or Robert Royal’s Faith and Reason Institute. The larger universities are a mixed bag. To most people, they sound mostly like the secular institutions they imitate. One cannot but notice the dynamism of several smaller schools including the University of Dallas, Franciscan University at Steubenville, Christendom, Assumption, University of Mary, St. Thomas Aquinas, Benedictine College, and Thomas More.

In this context, I would have to say that the Ignatius Press stands at the top of the list. It has published or republished the works of John Paul II, Joseph Pieper, Chesterton, von Balthasar, Peter Kreeft, Scott Hahn, Joseph Pearce, and any number of other well-known authors. It republished Gilson’s Unity of Philosophical Experience, a work not to be missed. The publication of several of Ratzinger’s books made Ignatius Press known world-wide. It took courage to publish Robert Reilly’s Making Gay Okay. The Father Elijah novels of Michael O’Brien became very popular. Ignatius Press even published several Schall books, surely acts of entrepreneurial fortitude in the publishing world.

Ignatius Press books are invariably well-presented, of a similar size and texture. They are physically good to hold. Their print is easy to read. The editing is always careful. The reader can be sure that there is an argument to be made, a point to be considered that gets to the heart of some basic issue. I recall Father Fessio saying to me years ago that we never know who will read a book. A book is thrown out there into the world, searching, as it were, for a reader. We never know who, if anyone, will ever read it or when or where, or in what language. Book publishing is both an act of faith and a throwing of the dice.

A book is both a physical object and a record of a mind. As a physical object it can land anywhere. A reader may come upon it when it was first published or years or decades after. Many of Ignatius Press’ books are translations of books from other languages that would never be available to us without their being rendered into English. These translations have greatly enriched the fund of knowledge available to us. If I were to name one book that illuminates more things than any other one, I would think that it was Ignatius Press’s translation of Joseph Pieper—An Anthology.

Ignatius Press began in space provided by the Carmelite sisters in San Francisco. Several years ago, it bought a renovated firehouse on Tenth Avenue in San Francisco where it is now happily located. The staff has a somewhat monastic routine. They recite the Angelus and often have Mass. A visitor is conscious that this is no ordinary place.

Ignatius Press, for all its accomplishments, has kept a low profile. This low-keyed approach has given it a certain freedom to publish what it thinks fit. It does publish controversial works. It has a wide variety of Bibles and Bible study books, enough to make the most diligent Protestant envious. It publishes major papal encyclicals and studies on the history of the Church. Since being founded in 1978, Ignatius Press has published over 2,000 titles by several hundred different authors.

In the end, I think that Ignatius Press has accomplished for the Church in this country what Sheed & Ward did for the English-speaking world in the last century; namely, it provided a steady voice of reason that has been at the same time literate, bemused, and philosophically sound. Ignatius Press is counter-cultural. It is a reminder to everyone, Catholics included, that the first defense of the faith is in the order of mind. Ignatius Press has understood where we must stand if we believe that reason and revelation belong together.

Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder and editor of Ignatius Press, addresses attendees of the Press’s 40th anniversary celebration in San Francisco, Saturday, November 3, 2018. (Photo: Joey Zarate)

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About James V. Schall, S.J. 180 Articles
James V. Schall, S.J. (1928-2019) taught political philosophy at Georgetown University for many years until retiring in 2012. He was the author of over thirty books and countless essays on philosophy, theology, education, morality, and other topics. His of his last books included On Islam: A Chronological Record, 2002-2018 (Ignatius Press, 2018) and The Politics of Heaven and Hell: Christian Themes from Classical, Medieval, and Modern Political Philosophy (Ignatius, 2020).

15 Comments

  1. I am very grateful to Ignatius Press for my spiritual formation from my time in RCIA to the present, and will continue to support them.

    And God bless Far. Schall for his tireless intellectual defence of our Catholic faith.

    • Is it my imagination that all your comments on CM and other disqus using websites have been deleted in the last day? I’m curious to know if CM took offense at one of your comments? I was banned by CM and unable to comment from then on any website with that identity a couple of years ago.

  2. It is rather absurd to include the male Dominicans in his list of positive influences considering what they have done with Providence College.

      • There have been several well publicized incidents, involving an English professor who was forced to leave and of harassment of a student who defended traditional marriage.

    • Yes, Mark, they have quite a PR machine. They have been into similar things all over that province. I was targeted by them and run out of one of their parishes.

        • Slanderous gossip initiated by the Friars followed by shunning and abusive threatening letters from the prior. It’s a common MO for gay men to gang up on a woman alone. Our former pastor had even bragged about how he and some others did this to a woman at a religious conference, exposing her to ridicule for her traditional faith. The letter guy was transferred after a complaint to the bishop but the damage was done. I endured this for six years.

        • And it doesn’t really matter any more. I consider myself an ex-catholic. The Church is for people who are married with children. The priests are mostly okay, just not toward me! What I call gay behavior is a supposition based on experience.

    • The male Dominicans veered off the tracks at Providence College, but I think that, in contrast to the Jesuits, they are still a good bunch of serious Catholic intellectuals.

  3. “BENE SCRIPSISTI DE ME” — “WELL HAST THOU WRITTEN OF ME”

    I am convinced that in these past forty years Ignatius Press has saved the Catholic Church in the United States with its publication of 2000 magnificent titles by several hundred different authors. Ignatius Press was able to overwhelm the namby-pamby liberal Catholic press of time, much of which has gone out of business. I don’t think any other country in the world has been blessed during these years with such a plethora of distinguished Catholic titles, not even Italy, France, Germany or the Vatican. Ignatius Press brought Fr. Fessio much suffering. I salute him and pray for him.

  4. “I think that Ignatius Press has accomplished for the Church in this country what Sheed & Ward did for the English-speaking world in the last century.” Boom. Exactly, and in a more muddled and toxic environment. High praise indeed.

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