Missionary priest loved living and serving among the people, foregoing the comforts of life to bring Christ’s Gospel to those most in need

DETROIT — According to Msgr. John Zenz, Fr. Robert Singelyn was a “lot like Pope Francis.”

And not just because the two lived on the same continent for most of their ministries.

A priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Fr. Singelyn served for 37 years not in a comfortable Detroit-area parish, but 4,600 miles away in a poor mission church in Recife, Brazil.

And he loved it.

“He was a person who loved a simple lifestyle,” said Msgr. Zenz, pastor of Holy Name Parish in Birmingham. “He wasn’t as extroverted as Pope Francis, but he really loved the poor and loved to be with people who were sick or suffering. He had a missionary zeal.”

Fr. Singelyn’s lifetime mission came to its conclusion March 16 with his death at the age of 85.

Born April 7, 1935, in Highland Park, Fr. Singelyn studied at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit and St. John’s Provincial Seminary in Plymouth. He was ordained a priest on June 4, 1960, and later earned a master’s degree from the University of Detroit.

After serving as associate pastor of St. Benedict Parish in Highland Park (1960-63) and on the staff of Bishop Gallagher High School in Harper Woods (1963-70), Fr. Singelyn volunteered to relocate to the Archdiocese of Detroit’s newly formed mission 600 miles south of the equator in Recife, Brazil.

He never looked back.

“So many of the Latin American countries and parts of Africa didn’t have enough vocations yet, so this was an opportunity for (the Archdiocese of Detroit), which at the time had a deluge of vocations, to share a priest and send some money to help the Diocese of Recife,” said Msgr. Zenz, moderator of the archdiocesan curia from 1990-2008.

In the years following the Second Vatican Council, the archdiocese’s sponsorship of the Nossa Senhora de Lourdes (Our Lady of Lourdes) Mission brought priests, seminarians and women religious to live and serve among the poor of northern Brazil — often without even the most basic of comforts. At the height of its ministry, the mission served upwards of 200,000 people, including Masses and sacraments in the native language, Portuguese.

But as the need for priests at home grew, the number of Detroit priests in Recife slowly shrank, until Fr. Singelyn was the only one left.

“He got up very early every morning — about 4 a.m. He had a very small room, and he slept on the floor because that’s how the people slept, and he wanted to be like them,” Msgr. Zenz said. “He would say his prayers and study the Scripture and have his black coffee early in the morning. And then he’d be ready for Masses and visiting the sick and homebound.”

Although Brazil was known for political upheaval and demonstrations during the time, Fr. Singelyn never got involved in politics, preferring instead to focus on prayer, Msgr. Zenz added.

In 2000, Msgr. Zenz visited Fr. Singelyn along with a handful of others, including a documentary crew from the Catholic Television Network of Detroit to capture what life was like at the mission.

Msgr. Zenz described Recife as “Brazil’s equivalent of Detroit” — mostly blue collar, with some middle class residents and others who are very poor. It was in the poorest of Recife’s poor neighborhoods where Fr. Singelyn worked in the mission.

“Fr. Tim Laboe and myself went with Ned McGrath (archdiocesan communications director) and some others from the TV station, and we spent 10 days down there,” Msgr. Zenz said. “I saw such dire poverty. The people lived with constant mudslides. The mud was mingled with sewage, which ran down the middle of the street.”

But the people of Recife “were very grateful for the people who wanted to come and see their towns and visit their houses,” Msgr. Zenz said. “They had very little to live on, but they were insisting we eat with them.”

It was amidst this backdrop that Fr. Singelyn ministered every day, among the poor in the city and its surrounding rural cane fields, from 1969 until 2006.

“Recife is not horribly poor, but it’s average,” Msgr. Zenz said. “But there is a very poor part of Recife, and that’s where Fr. Singelyn volunteered to go and work. He loved it so much he never wanted to leave.”

Fr. Singelyn’s parishioners urged him to build a better rectory — his was old, creaky and only got hot water a few hours each day — but Fr. Singelyn refused.

“It’s near the equator, so it’s hot all year. You had to sleep with the windows open and the fans on. They had all this netting that you had to wear constantly because they had mosquitos all night long,” Msgr. Zenz said. “He put up with a lot of inconveniences and suffering, but he took it in stride because to him, it was a privilege to live this way.”

During the 2000 documentary, Fr. Singelyn explained that the mission existed not just to help the local residents, but to empower them to better their lives.

“You wonder when you call someone poor, if we ought have layers of meaning. What is poverty? What does poor mean? Resources are always important, but money is not the most important thing to think of when helping the poor,” Fr. Singelyn said. “Putting money into programs where the poor would be able to contribute to what was going on and plan it and carry it out and then evaluate it together and keep it going. That would be the kind of money that would be most helpful to them and help poverty.”

Fr. Singelyn finally returned to Detroit in 2007, when the Recife mission closed, and later served as a weekend associate at parishes in the city and in Monroe. But his heart was always in Brazil.

“He was a true servant of God and a servant of the poor,” Msgr. Zenz said.

Fr. Singelyn is predeceased by his parents, Alfred and Julia Singelyn; sisters, Harriet Singelyn, IHM, and Mary Endres; and brothers, Edward and Alphonse. He is survived by nieces and nephews, including Robert and Margarite Endres. Condolences may be sent to Robert and Margarite Endres, 3444 Gerrald Avenue, Eau Claire, Wisconsin, 54701.

A Memorial Mass will be held on Tuesday, April 13, at St. Mary Parish, 127 N. Monroe Street, Monroe, Michigan 48162, at 10 a.m.