A passion for Christian mission and having more time during the Covid-19 lockdown helped Father Pierre Goldie become the oldest doctoral graduate at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) last month.
Fr Pierre, 73, the parish priest in Khayelitsha, completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Catholic Theology last month through distance learning.
“The parish was more excited than I was. They feel that I’m an example to the youth,” he said, explaining that the parish of Khayelitsha, which comprises three churches, St Raphael’s, All Saints and St Theresa of Lisieux, gave him a big party and many gifts in celebration.
“I was very embarrassed but I enjoyed the gifts afterwards.”
Theology is Dr Goldie’s fourth degree. His first was in business which he completed before he took the long and winding journey that ended at the seminary in Pretoria. His priestly journey started when a relationship with a girlfriend ended, and he felt a call to assist his local parish.
“We broke up and I said, now I’m going to find myself a Catholic girlfriend but I got more and more involved with the church. I joined the Justice and Peace movement, the Saint Vincent de Paul Society and I began serving on the altar and sometimes I went to church in the week just to see if there were any nice girls there,” he says chuckling. “And I pursued some of them but more and more my church work grew while my social life went down and down and more and more people were saying to me, ‘Have you thought about becoming a priest?’”
Initially, Dr Goldie resisted because he didn’t want to give up on the idea of marriage.
“I felt I couldn’t do it but one day I woke up and I thought ‘I can do it’ and that’s grace – amazing grace – and it really is amazing. It helps you overcome human obstacles to your personal calling.”
He was 39 years old when he applied to the seminary and was ordained a priest at age 46 with a degree in Sacred Theology.
During the years of his priesthood, Dr Pierre worked as a parish priest at several churches, including Tafelsig, in Mitchell’s Plain, Gugulethu and Langa, Khayelitsha, Overberg, Atlantis and now Khayelitsha. In 2006, he decided to resume his studies again.
“Nobody was really studying the theology of mission and the Catholic church is supposed to be missionary by its very nature.”
Once he completed his masters part time by correspondence, he lectured at the Cape Town seminary part time.
In 2018, he moved to Khayelistha, another parish with mostly Sotho and Xhosa-speaking parishioners. He became interested in how people accepted Catholicism while simultaneously practicing cultural rituals, and the study bug bit again.
“To me, it was a big mystery,” he said.” Basically, I was inspired by a great desire to bring Jesus Christ to the African people in a way that was familiar with their culture. All life is cultural. Culture is made of values – some of them deeper than others – that tell you how to lead your life, what’s important, who your god is, how you meet your husband or wife, how you bring up your children, your schooling, your work life, everything. All life is cultural. The Xhosa and Sotho have distinct cultures, which are mixed with the modern world, but still retain a lot of African traditions.”
He had started at the parish shortly before the pandemic and the timing turned out to be perfect for his academic needs.
“My first year and a bit at Khayelitsha was under lockdown and it helped me to do a lot of work on my thesis. Morning, afternoon and evening I was working. I had done all my interviews and I spent that time analysing the interviews. I got a lot of work done. I was sorry when lockdown was over.”
The doctorate built on the masters degree that he had finished through Unisa.
“Having done a masters through Unisa quite a while ago I thought, well, if I do a careful study, done through the doctoral level, I will get good supervision, because the professors there insist on the correct methodology, they will supervise the ethic angle, I can’t just go around asking questions, I have to get the correct ethical approval and that it is logical and theologically correct.
“I did this to get a solid backing behind my research, not to get a PhD behind my name. Some people call a PhD a Put Him/Her Down syndrome but I’m not going to put anyone down. I was supervised at a very high level and they passed my work so at least there’s something of value there.”
Dr Goldie said passion and sacrifice led him to persevere with his studies.
“If you’ve got a passion for something, it helps a lot. They call it a transformative motive, in other words, when you really want to transform something. And sacrifice is important. You have to sacrifice a lot of time.”
His passion and sacrifice have culminated in being the parish priest at seven parishes, four degrees and some lecturing during his nearly three decades of priesthood.
“I’m glad to say that after 27 years, they’ve got their money’s worth out of me,” Dr Goldie said laughing.
