Remembering Fr. Kaiser: Kenyan Bishop Who Saw Murdered Missionary Priest’s Body by Roadside Recalls Dreadful Moment

Nairobi, 22 August, 2025 / 9:40 PM

Bishop Salesius Mugambi of the Catholic Diocese of Meru in Kenya has remembered the day that Fr. John Anthony Kaiser was found murdered and called upon the people of God in the East African country to continue praying for the late Catholic Missionary Priest’s family.

In his Friday, August 22 homily at the celebration of the Silver Jubilee in memory of the late American-born member of the Mill Hill Missionary (MHM), Bishop Mugambi narrated the events of the morning of 23 August 2000.

He admitted not having recognized Fr. Kaiser, who lay by the roadside murdered, allegedly for being vocal about justice in defending the oppressed.

“I was teaching in Molo (in the current Nakuru Catholic Diocese), and I remember I was on my way to Nairobi when I saw a few people very early in the morning standing by the roadside, looking. I too went to look, and not identifying the body, I blessed the man and continued with my journey,” Bishop Mugambi said at the event that was held at Sacred Heart of Jesus, Lolgorian Parish of the Catholic Diocese of Ngong’, where Fr. Kaiser served until he met his death.

He added, “It was only after I arrived in Nairobi that I received the horrifying news of the murder of Father Kaiser.”

Fr. Kaiser’s body was found lying next to a shotgun with a wound on his head on the fateful morning along the Nakuru-Nairobi highway.

The MHM Priest was known for working with the vulnerable and the oppressed in Kenya. He was vocal and bold against the forced evictions of Kenyans from their ancestral land.

He was a critic of President Daniel Moi's administration, and once testified before a commission, accusing the government of fuelling the 1991-1993 ethnic violence in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province.

The native of Minnesota State in the U.S., who was 72 at the time, died five months after having received the Law Society of Kenya annual Human Rights Award for demonstrating courage, determination, and sacrifice on behalf of the weak, oppressed, and downtrodden.

Fr. Kaiser was born on 23 November 1932. He was ordained a MHM Priest in 1964 and commissioned to Kenya. He worked in the Dioceses of Kisii and Nakuru before proceeding to Ngong’.

In his August 22 homily, Bishop Mugambi expressed gratitude to God for the gift of Fr. Kaiser saying, “We remember our beloved Priest. He lived and he taught, after teaching, he acted.”

Urging those in leadership to work for justice and peace, the Kenyan Catholic Bishop said, “Sometimes it is easy to teach and to talk. It is easy to even write books. It is easy to write even in a newspaper. But if we do not act and use the Holy Spirit given to us by God, going out to point out issues that threaten peace, then it all amounts to nothing.”

“On the last day when we die, God will ask us what we did with the gifts He gave us, to preach peace in the world. He will remind us that we only listened, saw, felt pity, yet failed to act,” the Catholic Bishop who has been at the helm of Meru Diocese since March 2004 said.

Thanking God for the life example of Fr. Kaiser, Bishop Mugambi prayed for the people of God in Kenya “to have the courage to see, to judge and to act.”

“For all of us here, friends of Kaiser, we pray to be instruments of God. That God uses us for justice to be served in the world,” the 74-year-old Kenyan Catholic Bishop said.

Sabrine Amboka contributed to the writing of this story