It was in Chicago that I also met Fr. Charlie Duster for the first time. From Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Fr. Charlie had spent more than twenty years on mission in Fiji before coming to live in the Windy City in 2005. Since his last assignment in Fiji had been in Holy Family Parish (where Fr. Carlo is now the pastor), his conversations remained peppered with stories about its people.
Later, Fr. Charlie and I lived in the same Columban community outside Omaha, Nebraska. After his death there in 2017, another colleague who oversaw the disposal of his personal belongings gave me his travel bag,…