Fr TED FOGARTY
1918 - 1.07.2000
In the autumn of 1999 I was in Cochabamba, Bolivia, for an international meeting on small Christian communities. I remained there at the Salesian provincial house for a couple of months to visit communities in the area and get in touch with the Latin American situation again. Fr Teddy Fogarty, a Salesian who hailed from Co. Antrim, was a member of the community. Although retired, he was still active as a confessor and went out at weekends to celebrate the Eucharist. This despite having such problems with his legs as to require almost daily attention from the doctor.
During those months we went out on about four occasions to have a beer and a salsenia. On those outings he really opened up and told me his story four times over. Ted was born in Ballycastle in 1918. He belonged to a family of nine-eight brothers and one sister-and for 42 years his father was elected annually as Town Clerk of Ballycastle. According to Ted, his dad was the only Catholic town clerk in all of Northern Ireland. But Ballycastle was of course a Catholic enclave.
Both father and mother were people of great faith, hope, and charity. His mother was in fact a Protestant, but became a Catholic before marrying. To make sure that this process was thorough, the father put her in a convent for some time to be instructed and prepared by the sisters. These sisters did their work almost too well. So happy was she there that he nearly lost her to the nuns! They reared a contented and holy family, and one of the great regrets Ted had was that virtually all of them-the sister still survives in Ballycastle-were obliged to emigrate to England and Australia to make a living. At that time the North of Ireland was harsh ground for a Catholic to till.
In 1932, Ted himself went to Shrigley, Cheshire, England, with the intention of becoming a priest. Following his novitiate in Beckford, Gloucestershire, he made his First Profession in 1937. During his novitiate year he had volunteered for the missions. On being professed, he was told that his offer had been accepted and that he would be going to either Hong Kong or India. He told Fr Simonetti that he felt sure God wasn't calling him to either of those places! This must have surprised Fr Simonetti, because those were the days when the voice of the superior was quite definitely the voice of God.
Anyway, Fr Simonetti returned some days later to say, 'Your prayers have been answered. They are looking for missionaries in the Peruvian Province, but there's a snag. They want two: one for Bolivia and one for Peru. I wonder if you could find another to go with you?'
I think Fr Simonetti was being crafty here. Ted approached his fellow Irish novice Austin O'Toole whom he had heard express a desire to go on the missions. However, Austin's father was adamantly opposed to the idea. Austin renewed the request to his dad and the two novices made a novena to Don Bosco. Back came the reply, 'Alright, son, go wherever you want to, and be a good missionary.'
In 1937 they both made the arduous journey by sea from Genoa, visiting many ports to drop off Italian emigrants, and going through the famed Panama Canal before arriving in Peru. The emigrants were, according to Ted, a rumbustious lot! Ted was assigned to Peru and Austin to Bolivia and both did become good missionaries who served their adopted lands well.
Ted worked largely in schools. Even while studying philosophy, he was already engaged in teaching English. Theology he studied in Santiago de Chile. Egidio Viganò-later to become Salesian Rector Major-was a cleric working with the students of philosophy at the time. The philosophers and the oratory with which Ted worked frequently played each other in football. Don Viganò found the play of the big and burly Ted somewhat robust, but, even while Ted was a novice back in England, Don Simonetti asked him to go a bit more gently on his companion, John Vanston, on the soccer pitch. He was a redoubtable back. As a student in Pallaskenry, I also saw him wield a mean hurley in the late forties.
Following his ordination in 1947, he continued his school work in Peru. Even built a big College dedicated to Don Bosco in Piura, 1962. Such was his success in this endeavour, not least in his ability to raise funds, that he was asked to go to Cochabamba, Bolivia, and do the same. At this point he did a switch with Austin O'Toole, who went to Peru. He built yet another fine school for needy boys, named after Don Bosco, in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Ted always had a heart for the poor. When he finished his time in Don Bosco, he was made parish priest of Las Villas, Cochabamba. There was no health service there, so he built a clinic for the needy. But here he was destined to be overtaken by great historical events.
It was the eighties and the dictator, Garcia Mesa, currently imprisoned for the abuse of his position back in those days, was in power. One day, eighteen women arrived on Ted's doorstep with a problem. The police had taken the taxis or buses from their husbands and imprisoned them. To secure their release, the police wanted these chauffeurs to sell their vehicles and hand the money over to them. Full of indignation, Ted went to the police chief to complain. The chief got mad with him and just threw him out. Ted got equally mad. He wasn't ideological, but he was a man of great honesty and integrity-a prophetic type. What was right was right, and what was wrong was wrong. He promptly went to the papers, and all hell literally broke loose. A stick of dynamite was thrown into his room while he slept, and the place utterly destroyed. But there wasn't a scratch on Ted. It was a miracle. No doubt.
The nuncio summoned him and told him he was on a death list and got him out of the country to Peru. For about two years he wandered: USA, Ireland, England...He spent about eighteen months in Glasgow (1994-'96). There he got treatment for his legs and met up with a dear friend, Fr Columba Walsh SDB. Eventually he found his way back to Peru, where he did parish work with the Columban Fathers, who greatly esteemed him and loved his wry humour. While I was in Cochabamba, the regional superior of the Columbans, Ed Connell, came to see him, and affection and admiration for Ted just oozed out of him.
When things at last seemed safe in Bolivia, the then Provincial, Fr Tito Solari-now Archbishop of Cochabamba-went to Peru to personally accompany this fearless man back to Bolivia. There he lived out his final years.
As for me, I feel that God may have sent me as a representative of his country, Ireland, and of the former Anglo-lrish Province from whence he sprung, to bid farewell to this intrepid missionary. For as we sat having a beer and salsenia together, chatting and watching the humming-birds sip nectar from the blood-red hibiscus, the Lord was calling him across that canal that spans time and eternity for the longest journey of all. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam!