Fr. Joseph Fessio by TraLeSollecitudini - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikipedia
CV NEWS FEED // Founder of Ignatius Press Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., has had enormous impacts on Catholics through his work and example, according to a recent tribute from theology Professor Regis Martin.
“But for the work of Ignatius Press, my own life would most certainly have remained decidedly poorer in so many ways,” Martin wrote, crediting Fessio and Ignatius Press with influencing his decision to study and teach theology.
He added that “the compelling witness of [Fessio’s] priestly life, of his love for the Church,” has set a great example for how to maintain “constant and steadfast devotion” to the Church and a Christian life.
He has long been our mentor as well,” Martin continued. “He entered the Jesuits in 1961 and was ordained in 1972, so he has been a priest for more than fifty years, an impressively long time for anyone to have remained faithful.”
How did he stay faithful for so long? In a recent interview with Bishop Barron, Fessio said that he stayed steadfast “because I made a promise to God.”
Martin said that this promise of faithfulness is essentially a promise to renew the life of the Church through “a willingness to suffer for her, to undertake a life of virtue on her behalf.”
“That is what Ignatius Press and Fr. Fessio, who catalyzed it all into existence, have made possible for countless Catholics: an apostolate for providing wise and beautiful books—to keep alive the historical memory of what a Catholic culture steeped in learning and piety actually looks like,” Martin concluded.
