Our mission

The Catholic Truth Society is motivated today by the same desire that inspired its foundation: to evangelise and to spread the Catholic faith through the written word. Our Mission Statement says it all:

We believe in helping people to discover, nurture and share their faith, by providing honest and compelling answers to life’s deepest questions.

Everything we do is authentic, accessible, and authoritative. You can rely on us to tackle the important issues of life and faith, to make the complicated easy to understand, and that the works we publish are in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church.

As a charity and a publisher, we use the written word to support and encourage people at every stage of their journey; from parish priests to those exploring for the first time and from pre-schoolers to pensioners.

Catholic Truth Society
God’s truth, beautifully told.
SINCE 1868

Our History

CTS was founded by Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, in 1868, 18 years after the Restoration of the Catholic Hierarchy in England. He also built Westminster Cathedral. From the 1850’s as new opportunities opened up, both politically and technologically, CTS took up the growing power of print and communications. Concerned to help the Catholic community living in the shadows, persecuted and neglected, feeling very unsure of itself Cardinal Vaughan set up CTS to dispel prejudice and ignorance, offer spiritual support, formation and education in faith and morals, to reconnect UK Catholics with the wider life of the universal Church, papal teaching and the spiritual riches and treasures of the Church.

Through our tracts and affordable booklets on faith, doctrine, morals, devotion, lives of saints, and current debates, Catholics became educated when there was little else going for them. With street trolleys and display boxes in parishes, networks of supporters, conferences and talks, CTS’s efforts helped give back confidence to Catholic faithful at every level. CTS drew on the great minds and writers of the time, through the two great wars, the new ideologies, and several great social and Church upheavals. CTS facilitated the widespread circulation of teaching through papal documents, especially during the Second Vatican Council and was pivotal in disseminating its documents.

During the Second Vatican Council, in recognition for services rendered to the Vatican since our inception, CTS was awarded the title Publisher to the Holy See.