Father Joseph Fessio, S.J.: California Blackrobe

This in-depth, page-turning biography of Father Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder of Ignatius Press and the University of San Francisco’s Saint Ignatius Institute, is written by one of Fessio’s earliest Jesuit mentors, historian Father Cornelius Buckley, S.J.

Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area during the golden age after World War II, the bold, often reckless Joe Fessio would suddenly enter the Society of Jesus at age twenty and, by divine providence, find himself studying under three of the greatest theological minds of the twentieth century--Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI). Over the decades, he would transform into one of the most powerful and energetic forces in the American Catholic Church, designing a pioneering Catholic Great Books program at USF and founding perhaps the largest Catholic publishing house in the English-speaking world.

With many hysterical glimpses into the engine rooms of Catholic institutions, warts and all, this robust yet unsentimental study of Fessio’s unique life, cut with Buckley’s trademark wit, shows what effective Christian missionary work can look like in the age of media.

Cornelius Michael Buckley, S.J., was born in California in 1925, served in the Navy during World War II, and graduated from the University of Santa Clara in 1950, the same year he joined the Jesuits. After studies, he was a professor of history at the University of San Francisco until his retirement in 1998. In 2004, he became a chaplain at Thomas Aquinas College, a position he held until 2022, when he moved to the ＂Jesuit Finishing School＂, his term for the Society of Jesus’ retirement community in Los Gatos, California. Here, he waits his final assignment.