Becoming a Holy Cross Brother is a life-changing event—and for Brother Fulgence Dougherty, it put him at the center of world-changing events. Born, raised, and educated in the Midwest, he spent the years from ages 25 to 55 in India and Africa at a time of political turmoil and social unrest.

“I learned I was going to India in March of 1947,” he recalls.” By the time I got there in December, the region had become Pakistan. There were riots to get the British out before the country divided August 15, and afterwards there were riots between the Hindus and the Muslims. When that stopped, refugees were pouring back and forth across the border by the hundreds. If I had read a newspaper with a wider scope than the South Bend Tribune, I would have been scared to death!”

Holy Cross had three high schools: one in Dhaka, a second in Bandura, a village approximately 25 miles away, and a third about 100 miles north of Dhaka. Brother Fulgence spent the first year learning the language in Bandura. He then taught in Dhaka for two and a half years before returning to Bandura as headmaster.

“Those first eight years we had no electricity, no telephone, no roads,” he says.” Kids in the village had never seen a wheeled vehicle except a bicycle. We had no radio until 1956, when transistors became available, and they were cheap. Suddenly we could hear news broadcasts.

“Most encouraging,” he reflects, ”was the development of the Church and the community. We were helping to educate the Bengali priests, and the Bengali bishops had all been students at our school. We also began seriously recruiting Brothers for the community. When I went to that country, there were about 40 Canadian and American Holy Cross men and about four Bengalis. Now we have more than 50 Bengali Holy Cross, with four Americans and one Canadian. You strive for that, but we didn’t expect it would happen that quickly.”

In 1971 East Pakistan gained its independence as Bangladesh. When Brother Fulgence left the next year he was 50 years old and had spent exactly half of his life there. A one-year assignment in West Africa followed, then stretched on—the first two years at St. Patrick’s High School in Liberia, then four at St. John’s in the newly independent country of Ghana.

Facing mandatory retirement in Ghana, he packed his bags for a renewal program at the University of Portland, sponsored by the South-West Province.

“Once I got there,” says Brother Fulgence, “I learned the university was looking for an assistant director of international programs. It seemed like something I could do, and it would use the experience I had.

“Twenty-five years later, I am still here,” he says. “I was hired as assistant director and then became director for 12 years. By that time I was 70, and I retired. Now I’m just working half-time, doing paperwork for foreign student enrollment. Since 9/11, though, the number of applicants has dropped dramatically.”

He pauses, then observes with a smile, “I’m 81 now, so I wouldn’t turn down retirement.”

Brother Fulgence lives with 23 Holy Cross men—the kind of community life that has been a dependable resource in a lifetime of change. At a gathering several years ago, he told the other Brothers of the South-West Province, “In Holy Cross I have learned to pray and to serve others, and that has been the source of my fulfillment and happiness.”

At the time he also reflected on the mystery of vocation, saying, “The call comes from without—in my case, in the form of a Christian Brother—but it also grows up within us.”

What would he tell a young man who feels that call welling up within him?

“If he were older,” says Brother Fulgence, “he could get in touch with our vocation director to talk. If he were a student at University, I would encourage him. I’d tell him to continue his education until he got his degree, to pray and to think about it, and by time he was a senior to make application to the Congregation.

“And I would try to keep in touch with him.”