Leader14 - Rev Father Goertz (Cath. Mission) - Nairobi

Pastor in Nairobi and Zanzibar

1908 pastor of Holy Family parish in Nairobi. 1910 in parish in Zanzibar

1922 pastor and mission procurator in Mombasa till 1933

1904 in USA, Pittburgh and Detroit.

C.M. Playne - '...... The Father in charge is now the Rev. Peter Goetz, of Detroit, United States of America. .......'

Henry J. Koren, Spiritan East African Memorial, 1994 Educated in France, he did his philosophy and theology at Langonnet and Chevilly.  On August 15, 1897 he was one of the 23 young priests who made their vows in Orly. His first assignment sent him to Southern Nigeria, but illness forced him to return to France in 1899.  He then taught at Beauvais until Combes' persecution expelled the Congregation from that school. In 1904 he went to the U.S.A., where he ministered at St. Benedict the Moor parish in Pittsburgh until he became pastor of St. Joachim's parish in Detroit in 1906.  It was with regret that he was released from it two years later to go back to Africa, for "he had done a good job." On January 10, 1908 he sailed for the Vicariate of Zanzibar.  Bp. Allgeyer made him pastor of Holy Family parish in Nairobi, which by then was the parish where some 800 Goans and European settlers worshipped. In 1910 we find him in a similar parish on the island of Zanzibar.  During World War One after the German defeat in Tanganyika in 1917 Bp. Streicher was expelled  from  the  Dar-es-Salaam  vicariate with  nearly all  his  Benedictine confreres.   The Holy See then named Fr. Goetz apostolic administrator of the vicariate until normal conditions would return.  It was an unenviable task, for nearly all stations in the vicariate had to be left unmanned, but he did his best to borrow whatever personnel he could from less afflicted missions. In 1922 he could return to the Zanzibar vicariate and became pastor and mission procurator in Mombasa.  He served there till 1933. Going home for a badly needed rest, he was placed at Misergin, Algeria, where he could still do some ministry in one of the local parishes. In 1938 he returned to Kenya, but died five years later.