Anthony Taylor (bishop)

Taylor was born in Fort Worth, Texas on 24 April 1954. His parents and grandparents on both sides were long-time residents of Fort Worth. Two of his grandparents are converts (his mother's father from Judaism and his father's mother from Protestantism) and both of his parents, as well as the Taylor children themselves, were raised in Catholic homes.

Anthony Taylor is the oldest of the seven children of Basil and Rachel (Roth) Taylor. The Taylor family moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma in 1960. Taylor attended parochial and public schools in Ponca, graduating from high school in 1972. He attended the University of Oklahoma for two years, after which he entered St. Meinrad Seminary College in Indiana, graduating with a Bachelor of History degree. From 1976 to 1980, he trained for the priesthood at the Pontifical North American College in Rome while studying theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Taylor was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City at St. Mary Parish in Ponca City on August 2, 1980. His first assignment was to Sacred Heart Parish n Oklahoma City. Within a month of his ordination. he started celebrating mass in Spanish twice a month in Clinton and Hinton, Oklahoma. In 1982 he was transferred to western Oklahoma, where he lived at Queen of All Saints mission in Sayre until 1986.

In 1984, Archbishop Charles Salatka sent Taylor to Fordham University in New York City for further studies. He took classes there during the summers of 1984 and 1985, and then full-time from 1986 to 1988. During this time, Taylor also served Holy Rosary Parish in the Bronx. Fordham awarded Taylor a Doctor in Biblical Theology degree in 1989. The title of his dissertation was "The Master-Servant Type Scene in the Parables of Jesus".

Upon his return to Oklahoma, Taylor was named the vicar for ministries of the archdiocese. He was responsible for ministry to priests and, for a number of years, was also responsible for the permanent diaconate program. He had responsibility for the orientation and oversight of the international priests serving in Oklahoma, for the newly ordained priests in their first year of ministry and for priests in their first year as pastors. He remained the vicar for ministries for 20 years, until being named bishop of Little Rock.

In 1993, Taylor became the founding pastor of St. Monica Parish in Edmond, Oklahoma. In 2003 Taylor returned to Sacred Heart Parish in Oklahoma City as pastor. From 1963 to 2001, the archdiocese sponsored and staffed Santiago Atitlán Parish in Guatemala. Taylor was in charge of facilitating support from the archdiocese for that parish, its parish school, the local hospital and an alcohol abuse treatment center. Taylor also headed the canonization cause of Father Stanley Rother, an Oklahoma priest killed in Guatemala. Taylor interviewed 35 of the 112 surviving witnesses to Rother's death.

Taylor served as chairman of the Presbyteral Council, chairman of the Personnel Board, chairman of the Retirement Board, a member of the Archdiocesan Finance Council and a board member of the Mount St. Mary High School in Oklahoma City.

Taylor was appointed bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock by Pope Benedict XVI on April 10, 2008, the seventh bishop of the diocese. He was consecrated on June 5, 2008, at the Statehouse Convention Center in Little Rock.