Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.

In 1978, Father Joseph D. Fessio, S.J., together with Carolyn Lemon, founded a small publishing house to make the works of great 20th century European theologians available in English. These luminaries included such figures as Joseph Ratzinger, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Louis Bouyer, and Adrienne von Speyr, and in the decades since, the Ignatius Press catalog has come to include hundreds of authors and thousands of titles.

After growing up “on an island in the San Francisco Bay whose name begins with ‘A’ – but not Alcatraz or Angel” (Alameda), as he likes to say, young Joseph Fessio moved to Seattle for a time, but really grew up in Menlo Park, California. Raised in a Catholic family, he attended Bellarmine College Preparatory in San Jose, California, then studied civil engineering at the University of Santa Clara. On September 7, 1961, at the age of 19, he entered the Jesuit novitiate. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in philosophy from Gonzaga University, a master’s in theology in Lyon, France, and was ordained a priest on June 10, 1972.

Following his priestly ordination, Father Fessio earned his doctorate from the University of Regensburg, West Germany, under the tutelage of then-Father Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI), studying the ecclesiology of Hans Urs von Balthasar at the suggestion of Father Henri de Lubac.

Father Fessio taught philosophy and theology at Gonzaga University, the University of Santa Clara, and in 1976 the University of San Francisco, and founded the Saint Ignatius Institute at USF. He was also the founding provost of Ave Maria University. After the founding of Ignatius Press in 1978, even when responsibilities with these other organizations took him outside San Francisco, he never stopped working with Ignatius Press.

Father can be found working at the Ignatius Press offices late into the night, or growing grapes and making wine at the Press’ retreat house property in the Santa Rosa mountains. After more than four decades at the helm, Father Fessio shows no signs of slowing, and can even regularly be seen discussing Ignatius Press books and interviewing authors on the Ignatius Press social media channels.