The funeral Mass for Father Robert V. Fleiter was to be celebrated May 11 in the St. Vincent de Paul Chapel at Cardinal Rigali Center in Shrewsbury. He died May 7. He was 82 and had been a priest for 57 years.

Born on Dec. 16, 1935, in St. Louis, he was ordained a priest on March 18, 1961, by Cardinal Joseph E. Ritter. His first assignment was as a part-time religion teacher at Bishop DuBourg High School. He also served an appointment to the Missionary Apostolate of Southeast Missouri in the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau.

In May 1963, he was appointed assistant pastor of St. Sebastian Parish in north St. Louis County. He was a full-time religion teacher at Rosary High School in 1966-67, then becoming full-time associate pastor at St. Sebastian in 1967. In 1969, he began an eight-year stay as associate pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Clayton. He then served for three years as associate pastor at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Bellefontaine from 1977-80 before beginning his first pastorship at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Luebbering. He also served as chaplain for Missouri Eastern Correctional Center Pacific in 1981 while at St. Francis of Assisi until 1985.

He served as pastor at Immaculate Conception Parish in Old Monroe 1985-94, then spent one year as senior priest in service at St. Mary Parish in Bridgeton. He ended active ministry with 16 years as pastor at Assumption Parish in Herculaneum — the longest he stayed in one place as a priest. He retired in 2011 with residence at Regina Cleri, then moved into Cori Manor Nursing Home in Fenton in 2016.