Press > The Sunday Times, January 4, 2004     
 

He once was lost, but now is found
By: Wong Kim Hoh


He went from CID man to zookeeper to priest.
NO LUXURY CRUZ : Before he had his calling, Father Glenn was a biker, hard
rocker and disco punk. He now befriends and helps outcasts.

Father Glenn de Cruz, by his own confession, led an aimless life 20 years ago.
The man who used to work at the CID, then at the zoo as a sealion trainer, found God at the zoo

MANY years ago, a yet unordained Father Glenn de Cruz was counselling a drug
addict from the Selarang Drug Rehabilitation Centre.
   One day, the latter approached him for some Bibles. He was very specific
about the kind he wanted - Good News Bibles - and he wanted 15 of them.
   Elated that his teachings had inspired the drug abuser, Father Glenn happily
complied.
   'I was seeing another drug addict then and I told him what I did. He started
laughing,' says the 53-year-old priest as he tells his tale in a room at the
Novena Church.
   He was mortified when he learnt the truth. Apparently, at night, friends of
the inmates would throw red Chinese tobacco over the fence to be picked up
when the residents went for their walks. As Good News Bibles were printed on
thin paper, the pages were perfect for rolling cigarettes.
   'I went to the centre and asked to be shown my Bibles. True enough ...' he
says, slapping his thighs and laughing heartily.
   Father Glenn has a nice baritone, a mop of unruly hair, a distinctive
moustache and a pair of square glasses framing a kindly demeanour. He is
partial to the music of Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald and other jazz greats.
   Before he gave up the secular life more than two decades ago, he rode a big
Kawasaki, listened to Led Zeppelin and was a regular at Barbarella and The
Library, now defunct but very popular Orchard Road haunts in the 1970s. He
also trained sealions at the Singapore Zoo for a living.
   He is the eldest of four children. His father was a journalist with The
Straits Times while his mother was a housewife.
   After completing his Senior Cambridge (the equivalent of today's A
levels) at St Joseph's Institution in the mid-1960s, he worked as an administrator
at the Criminal Investigation Department.
   'In those days, communist elements were the great threats. My job was to
check reports and compile files for detectives.'
   Although he drew a salary decent enough for him to afford a car, he was
restless. When the newly opened zoo advertised for zookeepers in 1974, the
then 21-year-old animal lover leapt at the chance. 'I was drawing $1,200 at the
CID, the zookeeper job only paid $290. My father said I was crazy.'
   But he got his way. He cleaned dens, fed animals (he still shudders over
how he once forgot to close a door while feeding the polar bears) and picked up
aspects of zookeeping.
   'The zoo sent me to a few places, including Ocean Park in Hong Kong for
half a year. I learnt how to look after and train sea lions and dolphins, and I
came back with a few sealions to open the sealion pool,' he says.
   By his own reckoning, he led a 'happy if aimless' life.
   'I had no real ambition. I just enjoyed day-to-day living, hanging out
with friends, going to nightclubs,' says the man who wrecked his car in an
accident along Lorong Chuan but walked away without a scratch while he was in his
20s.
   A Catholic who only attended church when he 'felt like it', he, however,
had a spiritual awakening working with the animals. 'You can say I found God in
the zoo. The more I worked in the zoo and the more I read about the ecosystem,
the more I am convinced that there has to be some sustainer in this chain of
life.'
   He wanted to talk about 'the spirituality of the ecosystem' and
remembered an Australian priest from his school. Father P.J. O'Neill was a
Redemptorist priest (The Redemptorists are a Catholic order that attends to the poorest
and the abandoned) and was then running The Aspirancy House which has since
closed.
   Located in Nallur Road off East Coast Road, it was a place for young men
contemplating priesthood.
   'I visited him. He said: This is interesting. Why don't you stay here?'
   The young de Cruz, however, got frightened but continued to be plagued
by existential doubts.
   'I was restless, I couldn't sleep and I told myself I got to go back to
see Father O'Neill.'
   He did, a year later. This time, he brought with him a bag.
   'Initially, I'd go home but then, I began to stay longer and longer.'
   After a year, he decided to end his six-year stint with the zoo and gave
up the secular. Although his parents fully supported him, it was not an easy
decision.
   'Priesthood means celibacy and I had a girlfriend then. I didn't see any
angels, Moses didn't come down to me and said, Hey you',' he jokes.
   'For me, the process was gradual. The answer lies in being still, and
taking stock, thinking and meditating. That's when you can see the footprints of
your journey,' says Father Glenn, who went to the Catholic Theological Union in
Chicago to do his master's.
   Over the years, he has helped the socially ostracised, such as Aids
victims and drug addicts.
   He was once chaplain of the Aids ministry - under the Arch Diocese of
Singapore - where he worked tirelessly to remove 'the stupid stigma' from
the disease.
   Many of these outcasts have become his friends, including a drug addict
who once lambasted him.
   'I was talking about God's love and after my sermon, he came over and
said that I was talking rubbish. His father was a diamond merchant, his mother
played mahjong every day. They lavished him with material things but they
neglected him.'
   He was struck by the man's words. 'That made me realise how important it
is not to talk of lofty ideals from a perch.
   'You have,' he says, 'to give and you have to experience'.