Father Robert Thames, diocesan priest and missionary, dies at 86
Fr. Robert Thames, Feb. 24, 2017 in Fort Worth. (NTC/Ben Torres)
As a young seminarian in 1961, Father Robert Thames traveled by motorcycle through France, stopping in the village of Ars to see the place where St. John Vianney lived. The patron saint of parish priests was known for spending hours in the confessional reconciling people to the faith and visiting families in their home. Witnessing the confessor’s simple life of humility and service influenced Fr. Thames’ own vocation.
“I tried to live his humbleness of living as patterned after Jesus Christ who lived among the people,” the longtime missionary wrote in a June 2024 newsletter to friends in the Diocese of Fort Worth. “His [St. John Vianney] was an example of total giving — never tiring or too busy to give time to those in need of love and spiritual support.”
Fr. Thames, who spent decades working with the poor in Mexico and Bolivia, died peacefully on Oct. 22 in Cabezas, Bolivia. A Mass of Christian Burial was held Oct. 23 in Nuestra Señora del Carmen Church. In keeping with the late priest’s wishes, internment followed in the town’s cemetery. He was 86.
Born in Decatur, the deceased belonged to Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish as a youth and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Dallas-Fort Worth on June 27, 1964, in St. Patrick Cathedral. After serving as assistant pastor at Saint Pius X and Saint James churches in Dallas and Saint Anthony Church in Longview, Fr. Thames was incardinated as a priest for the Diocese of Fort Worth in 1970.

His assignments in the newly established diocese included serving as pastor of Sacred Heart in Breckenridge from 1971 to 1979, and St. Francis of Assisi in Graford as well as providing pastoral care for San Patricio Mission in Throckmorton.
“Fr. Thames was very friendly and outgoing with parishioners. He loved to go to people’s homes for dinner,” remembered Maria (Lupe) Ponce, who got to know the pastor when she played on Sacred Heart’s basketball team in high school. “He was always organizing get-togethers or retreats for the youth.”
When Ponce married her husband, Johnny, in 1979, Fr. Thames started the parish’s marriage encounter program.
“He called us his guinea pigs because we were his first engaged couple to go through it,” she said. “What I’ll miss most is his smile. He always wanted to get to know his parishioners better.”
Following a desire to become a missionary priest, Fr. Thames traveled with a group of Maryknolls to the mountains of Bolivia where he ministered until becoming ill in 1983. His next foreign assignment lasted 11 years in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. In September 1996, Fr. Thames returned to Bolivia, first to serve a parish in Santa Cruz and then to work in the rural villages of Cabezas, Bolivia. With the help of Educate the Children donors, the priest opened Nuestra Señora del Carmen School in 2004 — the first of four campuses. Expanded educational opportunities for villagers included training for technical occupations, adult high school classes, special education for disabled youngsters, boarding for elementary students, and housing for state university students in Santa Cruz and Camiri.
Felicia Gehrig, a former Maryknoll mission volunteer with her husband Jason, shared Fr. Thames’ love of the Bolivian people and culture. The trio often dined together when he returned to the diocese for fundraising.
“I think he really wanted to model Jesus in the way he served the people,” said the St. Patrick Cathedral parishioner. “He saw his vocation as helping the people on the margins — particularly the poor and those in most need.”
The priest often expressed to his friends a desire to die in Bolivia.
“He believed we should all live as Jesus did — humbly and faithfully,” Gehrig said. “He practiced what he preached and that inspired me.”