Cornelius Buckley, S.J. ’50 has authored a new biography of Joseph Fessio, S.J. ’62. Both Fr. Fessio and Fr. Buckely taught at Santa Clara University from 1966 to 1969. Father Joseph Fessio, S.J.: California Blackrobe is an in-depth, page-turning biography of the founder of Ignatius Press and the University of San Francisco’s Saint Ignatius Institute. Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area after World War II, the bold, often reckless Joe Fessio would suddenly enter the Society of Jesus at age 20 and, by divine providence, find himself studying under three of the greatest theological minds of the 20th 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.