‘A parish priest at heart’

The late retired Anglican Bishop of Kingston, Reverend Robert Thompson, was on Monday remembered for his admirable and faithful service in spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ for decades in Jamaica.

Thompson’s ministry was characterised as one which entailed “a deep commitment to Christ and his church”, and involved “a self-given practice of sensitive and compassionate” pastoral care as well as looking out for the poor and disadvantaged, according to Dr Howard Gregory, Archbishop of the West Indies and Bishop of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, who delivered the morning’s sermon.

“We give thanks for his life,” he said as family members, friends and other mourners gathered at the St Andrew Parish Church, where Thompson served from 1990 to 2005 prior to his consecration as Suffragan Bishop of Kingston in May 2005.

Gregory also noted that Thompson never claimed to be a saint, but was faithful in his call to service.

After leaving Jamaica College, Thompson found employment at Barclays Bank, where he spent two years. To undertake what he believed to be a greater calling on his life, Thompson enrolled at the United Theological College of the West Indies.

On June 29, 1973, Thompson was ordained as deacon in the University Chapel, Mona. The following year, he was ordained into priesthood in the month of June.

In 2005, he was consecrated as Bishop.

Thompson also served 10 years as rector at St Jude’s Church in Stony Hill, St Andrew.

After a long battle with cancer, Thompson died at the age of 74 on February 10, only a few months before the celebration of his 50th anniversary of ordination.

He retired in 2020 after 47 years as an ordained minister, and is survived by his wife Charmaine and sons Matthew and Joseph.

In his sermon, Gregory emphasised that a messenger of God was one who was driven by a strong sense of dependence upon His guidance and enabling through the Holy Spirit. This, he said, characterised who Thompson was despite him experiencing moments of suffering in his personal life and illness in his last years, while he was still engaged in ministry.

“Ministry, sisters and brothers, is not one perpetual joy ride,” he said.

Gregory noted that God’s call on Thompson’s life was to use him to “enliven, empower, console, comfort and challenge the people of God”.

Despite having attained numerous qualifications and great honours, the late retired Bishop’s sister, Hope Thompson, recalled that he was always her “big brother Robert”.

“This humility of character was one of Robert’s most admired traits, and it allowed him to be the hands and feet of God, wherever he went. Robert lived by the mantra ‘we are blessed to be a blessing’, and the heartfelt outpouring of stories from those people whose lives he touched is a testament that he practised what he preached,” she said in a tribute.

Hope added that Thompson had been “such a blessing to our family, in ways too numerous to recount, and we will be eternally grateful for every minute God shared with us the gift that was Robert McLean Thompson”.

According to Angella Thompson, his other sister, Thompson was always there for her.

Bishop Thompson was also the immediate past chairman of the Diocesan festival choir, which, in a tribute, described him as a visionary, a lovable, affable and positive individual with lofty ambitions for the choir.

The Diocese of Jamaica and The Cayman Islands described Thompson as “a strong, decisive, no-nonsense leader, who was action-oriented, and brutally honest at times”, noting that he enjoyed working with his fellow clergy and lay members in the Kingston Region’s six parishes for which he had administrative responsibility and was “a parish priest at heart”.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com