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Abstract

We here at St. John's University (SJU) in Minnesota, a co-publisher of the JSE, share a special connection with Fr. John Kaiser, the subject of these articles in his honor. Fr. Kaiser was born in a parish in the Diocese of St. Cloud in 1934, in which the university is located, and graduated from SJU's preparatory high school and matriculated at SJU for two years before leaving to join the U.S. Army in 1954. He later entered the seminary and in 1964 was ordained a priest in the Mill Hill religious order, which sent him to Kenya. In August 2000, Fr. Kaiser was killed in what the Kenyan Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission in 2013 officially labeled "a political assassination" (Kenya Transitional Justice Network, 2013). Recently (February 2025) Amnesty International Kenya stated that Fr. Kaiser's "outspoken stance against injustice and advocacy for victims of political violence made him a prominent figure in Kenya’s human rights landscape" and that "[h]is death prompted widespread calls for justice and remains a significant moment in Kenya’s history of human rights activism" (Amnesty International Kenya, 2025).

In Kenya, Fr. Kaiser became deeply involved in human rights work because of the injustices the people to whom he was ministering were experiencing. Because of his faith and experience, he was courageous, outspoken and what some would call prophetic. Some believe he is a saint and are advocating his canonization (see the article by Elizabeth Brown). His human rights work, so well described in the article below by the courageous lawyer who worked with him, Mbuthi Gathenji, earned him international recognition and human rights awards. In March 2000, just five months before his assassination, the Law Society of Kenya awarded Fr. Kaiser its annual human rights award stating he was "a study in courage, determination and sacrifice on behalf of the weak, oppressed and downtrodden" (Law Society of Kenya 2000). After his death, the Kenyan National Human Rights Commission awarded Fr. Kaiser its 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Minnesota-based Advocates for Human Rights also gave Fr. Kaiser a human rights award (for more information on his life, see Fr. Kaiser's book, If I Die, which has been re-issued by the Kenyan Catholic Bishops, Omondi, 2024; and Wikipedia, n.d.) 2

As part of a group from the Diocese of St. Cloud that travelled to Kenya months before Fr. Kaiser's assassination, Fr. William Vos, a good friend of Fr. Kaiser's from the Diocese of St. Cloud, introduced me to Fr. Kaiser and we talked briefly. Fr. Kaiser gave me some papers to bring back with me to Minnesota, papers that I continue to keep and that have since become even more significant to me. I followed and was fortunate to be able to attend some of the Inquest into Fr. Kaiser's death, and while the magistrate, a former human rights lawyer, was very good and committed to justice, I and others could see that it would be very difficult to bring Fr. Kaiser's killers to justice — and they still have not been brought to justice (see article by Mbuthi Gathenji).

As these articles will show, Fr. Kaiser continues to be for many an inspiring example of deeply and courageously caring for people and working for human rights. My special thanks to the authors for writing them..

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