CatholicStock Competitors

Christian Book Distributors is the largest religious catalog company in the world, and the leading distributor of Christian products. CBD has been in business for 35 years, and has a staff of 500 employees. We are honored to have been listed among the winners of The Boston Globe 100 Top Places to Work for the last four years in a row; and Christianbook.com, the online home of CBD, is ranked among the Top 500 Internet Retailers.

Ascension Press is a faith-formation apostolate and company. Our mission is to provide Catholic parishes, schools, organizations, and individuals with effective and engaging Catholic study programs, books, and other resources. Always working within the heart and mind of the Church, Ascension’s materials are solidly Catholic while at the same time being accessible to the average person in the pew. We are a group of motivated lay-Catholics who have taken up the call of the New Evangelization with our whole hearts. We have built a strong reputation for providing the highest level of parish support and customer service, and each day we work one-on-one with priests, deacons, religious educators, teachers, and youth ministers to engage and nurture Catholics at all levels of their faith journey. We consider ourselves blessed to do this work, and pray that God will continue to use us to bring His message to the world for many years to come.

Ave Maria Press has been in continuous business since 1865, when the visionary Holy Cross priest Edward Sorin, who had founded the University of Notre Dame twenty-three years earlier, started the Ave Maria magazine. Father Sorin’s goal was to produce a magazine honoring Mary, focusing on Catholic families, and showcasing the best American Catholic writing. Despite discouragement from naysayers who didn't believe it could be done, Sorin launched his magazine. In a daring move for his era, he soon turned the reins over to a woman, Sister Angela Gilespie, a nurse veteran of the Civil War. The Ave Maria grew quickly, and by the turn of the twentieth century, it was the most popular English-language Catholic magazine in the world. During the 105-year run of the Ave Maria, the Press also published books and pamphlets, a program it began to develop more fully in the 1960s. When declining circulation forced the magazine to cease publication in 1970, book publishing was pushed into high gear. Over the years, Ave Maria Press has published such important Catholic authors as Joseph Champlin, Tom Corcoran, Thomas Green, Edward Hays, Lisa Hendey, Francis MacNutt, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Christine Valters Paintner, Michael Pennock, Joyce Rupp, Mother Teresa, Michael White, Robert Wicks, and Macrina Wiederkehr. Now established as a major Catholic book publisher and still under the ownership of the United States Province of the Congregation of Holy Cross, Ave Maria Press is home to Sorin Books, Forest of Peace, Christian Classics, and Spiritual Book Associates, a book club. It perpetuates Fr. Sorin's vision to honor Mary and provides an important outlet for good Catholic writing. Ave Maria is also recognized as a leader in publishing Catholic high school religion textbooks, parish resources, and books on prayer and spirituality.