Fr. Thomas Dugan, CSB Awarded President’s Medal for Service

Congratulations to Fr. Thomas Dugan, CSB, who was awarded St. John Fisher College’s President’s Medal for his Service to the Basilian Missions. The award was presented by President Gerald J. Rooney, at the 63rd Commencement Ceremony held on Saturday, May 13 in Rochester, New York. The award recognizes the 50 years he dedicated to parishes in Mexico.

Born in Rochester in 1929, Fr. Dugan is a graduate of the Aquinas Institute, and earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of St. Michael’s College in Toronto. He studied theology at St. Basil’s Seminary, also located in Toronto, and was ordained in 1960.

Fr. Dugan’s 50 years with the Basilian Fathers’ missions in Mexico and Colombia began in 1961 with his appointment to the Basilian Fathers Missions Center in Wharton, Texas. In 1965, he was sent to the Mexican missions at the parish of San Juan Crisóstomo in the pueblo of San Juan de Aragón, Mexico City. There, he discovered his charism was for home visitations of the sick and work in the hospitals.

While abroad, he worked with Fr. Max Murphy, CSB, Fr. Frank Launtrie, CSB, and the Catechetical Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, to deliver a program to prepare parents and children for a life of faith. The Cataquesis Familiar program was centered on creating a parish that would become a Eucharistic community and a mission community. The program was adopted in other parishes and dioceses in Mexico. Fr. Dugan moved to the Diocese of Tehuacán, Puebla, to experiment with Catequesis Familiar in small towns in a rural setting to see how it could be used to form ministries, catechists, and Eucharistic ministers. The parish chosen by the Bishop was La Asunción de la Virgen, Caltepec, Puebla, which was composed of a main town and 18 other communities.

Dugan retired in 2015 to the Basilian Fathers of East Rochester.

Photo credit: John Smillie Photography//St. John Fisher College