GOFFE
02
GOFFINE
early, her education was left to the care of an aunt who
sent her to school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart,
Besangon. At first her silent, observant, and distant
attitude showed that she felt herself out of tune with
her surroundings, but in the second year she threw
herself into school life and carried all before her in
lessons and play. At the age of seventeen she entered
the novitiate of the Sacred Heart at Montet and took
her first vows in 1837. In 1S42 she was entrusted with
tlie charge of the school at Besanfon, which was gouig
through a difficult phase. Her judicious management
showed what might be expected of her in the future,
and immediately after profession in 1847 she was
appointed mistress of novices at Conflans. She con-
tinued in this charge, to which was afterwards added
the government of the house as superior, tmtil 1864,
when she was named vicar-general. The failing
strength of the foundress made it necessary for her to
have some one at hand, to whom she could communi-
cate her views for the future. She found a full imder-
standing of them in Mother Jose]3hme Goetz, who was
elected superior-general in 1805 after the death of
Blessed Madeleine Sophie Barat.
Mother Goetz governed as superior-general for nine years. Her work was principally one of consolidation and development of what had been established or pro- jected by the foinidress. She established a training school at Conflans to prepare the young religious for their duties as teachers, and entrusteil to a small com- mittee the revision and adaptation of the curriculum of stutlies to the growing needs of the order. During the Franco- Prussian war and the time of the siege and Commune in Paris, Reverend Mother Goetz was obliged to withdraw to Laval, that communications with her religious might not be cut off. She employed the enforced leisure of those months in collating and revising the summaries of decrees and decisions of the general congregations of the Society of the Sacred Heart. Reverend Mother Goetz made visitations of the houses then existing in Europe, as far as time and health permitted — but her strength rapidly failed and she died from a stroke of paralysis, after a few days' illness. The marking features of her personality were breadth of view and rapid intuition that appeared unerring as an instinct, directness of intention and strength of purpose which lay concealed under a timid exterior, but astonished by their force when circum- stances called for prompt decision and action — and a characteristic grace of humility which seemed to be her distinguishing supernatural gift.
J. Stit.\rt.
GoSe (or Gocgh), Stephen, Oratorian; b. 1605; d. at Paris, Christmas Day, 1681. He was the son of Stephen Goffe, Protestant rector of Stanmer in Sussex, and was educated at Merton College, Oxford, becom- ing M. A. in 1627. He took orders and became chap- lain to Colonel \'ere's regiment in the Low Countries. Subsequently the Earl of St. Alban's obtained his ap- pointment as one of the chaplains to Charles I, in which capacity he was created D. D. in 16.36. He was often employed in secret negotiations in France, Flan- ders, and Holland. During the Civil War he was arrested and charged with attempting to rescue the king, then a pri.soner at Hampton Court. After the execution of the king (whose death-warrant was signed by Stephen's brother William), he went to France, where he became a Catholic. Dodd and other Cathohcs have disproved the story that the Sorbonne admitted the validity of his Anglican orders. He be- came an Oratorian on 14 Jan., 1651, at Notre-Dame- des Vertues near Paris, where he became superior in 1655. Here he helped Engli-sh exiles, both Protest- ants and Catholics, using his influence with Queen Henrietta Maria on their behalf: and on her appoint^ ment he acted as tutor to the young Duke of Mon- mouth. He was a learned man and maintained a
correspondence with Vossius and other scholars.
Some of his letters were printed byColomesius in 1690,
and others, still in manuscript, are in the British
Museum (Addit. MS. 6394).
Dodd, Church History (Brussels, 1737-41). Ill, 305; Claren- don. History of the Rebellion (1702-04); Linoard, History of England (London. 1849), VIII. 191; Estcourt, Question of Anglican Orders Discussed (London, 1S73): Gillow, Bibl. Diet. Eng. Cath., s. v.; Cooper in Diet. Nat. Biog., s. v. He is also referred to in a scurrilous Parliamentarian libel published in 1646 under the title The Lord George Digby's Cabinet and Dr. Golf's negociations.
Edwin Burton.
Goffine, (or Goffine), Leon.\rd; b. at Cologne, or according to some, at Broich, 6 December, 1648; d. 11 August, 1719. At the age of nineteen he entered the Norbertine Abbey of Steinfeld, in the Eifel district of Germany, and commenced his two years novitiate in July, 1667. Having made his solemn profession on 16 Jul}', 1669, he was sent for his course of philosophy and theology to the Norbertine college at Cologne. Ordained priest on Ember Saturda}- before Christmas, 1676, Goffine was sent to Dunwald to assist the priests who were charged with the direction of the parish and the convent of Norbertine canonesses. In the same capacity he was afterwards sent to Ellen, where there was also a convent of Norbertine nuns. Goffine remained four years in each of these places, being recalled by the abbot, 20 February, 1680, to fill the office of novice master in the abbey. He was next given charge of the parish of Clarholz, which was incor- porated with the Norbertine .Vbbey of the same name, in the Diocese of Osnabriick, for owing to the dearth of priests due to the Lutheran heresy and the Thirty Years War, abbots and bishops were obliged to have recourse to other dioceses and religious orders to fill the vacancies.
Goffine remained at Clarholz five years (1680-85), and was sent thence to Niederehe, a priory which the Abbey of Steinfeld possessed in the .\rchdiocese of Trier. He remained in Niederehe but a very short time, being sent in 1885 to assist the clergy of St. Lambert's at Coesfield, in the Diocese of Munster. He left Coesfeld in 1691, when, at the urgent request of the Archbishop of Trier, he undertook the charge of the parishes, first of Wehr (1691-94), then of RheinboUen (1694-96), and afterwards of Oberstein on theNahe, from December, 1696, until his death in 1719. While parish priest of Oberstein he had also to attend the Catholics living at Weiersbach, in the Diocese of Mayence. The inhabi- tants of Oberstein were mostly Protestants, and at times Goffine had much annoN'ance to bear from them. Animated with apostolic zeal, Goffine was all things to all men, and, as Dr. Joseph Prickartz, president of the Norbertine college at Cologne, wrote, in a sketch of his life, "Goffine was a truly apostolic pastor, filled with an untiring zeal for souls, who edified everyone by his word and by his example. The purity of his life, the integrity of his morals, the fervour of his ser- mons, the pleasing st}'le of his writings, commanded the respect of even the enemies of his religion. From the rudest and most forward of these he had often to endure the bitterest insults, but at these he showed himself the more cheerful, since by them he became the more conformable to those who had the happiness to suffer insults for the name of Jesus". This is a character sketch of the saintly priest, not only during the twenty-three years he worked at Oberstein, but even from the day of his ordination to the priesthood.
In the month of July, 1719, he returned to the Ab- bey of Steinfeld in order to be present at the feast of St. Norbert (July 11), and to follow the spiritual exercises during the octave. On the Sunday during the octave he preached the panegj'ric of the holy founder, and on 16 July he celebrated the golden jubilee of his own religious profession.
After the octave he returned to Oberstein, and lesa than a month later he rendered his well-tried soul to
