Saint Paul Seminary Press (SPSP) was born from the desire to continue the Catholic Theological Formation Series. That series began in 2015 under the leadership of the academic dean of The Saint Paul Seminary, Christopher J. Thompson, in collaboration with Eerdmans Publishing in Grand Rapids, MI.
In 2019 Thompson tasked Rev. Kevin Zilverberg, Assistant Professor of Sacred Scripture, to take over as general editor of the series, to contact Eerdmans about its continuation, and to consider bringing it fully under the auspices of the seminary through the new Institute for Catholic Theological Formation, for which Zilverberg was also the founding director.
From 2019 through 2021 Zilverberg oversaw the seminary’s acquisition of the rights to the series and began to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a press. He established a network of freelancers for book production in order to bring four initial books to press by the end of 2021. He also facilitated the signing of a contract with Catholic University of America Press (CUAP) in Washington, DC, whereby they became the distributor for SPSP’s books. Since the fall of 2021, these books have appeared in the “Distributed Presses” section of CUAP’s catalog. Soon afterwards, CUAP began offering SPSP e-books as well. In 2022, Faithlife Corp. began offering SPSP digital books on their Logos and Verbum software platforms.
In late 2024, Dean Christopher Thompson assumed leadership of Saint Paul Seminary Press.
The nascent SPSP hopes to make a significant contribution to scholarly theological dialogue, in Catholic centers of higher education and beyond. It hopes to contribute to the intellectual formation of Catholic thinkers and leaders.
SPSP belongs to the Association of Catholic Publishers. Saint Paul Seminary Press, Saint Paul Seminary, and Joyful Catholic Leaders are registered trademarks of The Saint Paul Seminary.
