Father Anthony B. Taylor, a priest in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, was named seventh bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock the morning of April 10.
The word came at 5 a.m. CDT from Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the United States, that Pope Benedict XVI had made the appointment.
A press conference will be held at 2 p.m. today in Morris Hall Chapel on the grounds of St. John Catholic Center at 2500 North Tyler Street. Archbishop Eusebius J. Beltran of Oklahoma City will introduce Bishop-elect Taylor who succeeds Bishop J. Peter Sartain, the Diocese of Little Rock’s sixth bishop, who was installed as the bishop of Joliet on June 27, 2006.
During the past 21 months while the Diocese of Little Rock has been without a bishop, Msgr. J. Gaston Hebert has served as the diocesan administrator. He also will be present for this afternoon’s press conference.
Anthony Basil Taylor was born April 24, 1954, in Fort Worth, Texas. He is the oldest of seven children born to Basil and Rachel (Roth) Taylor who moved their family to Ponca City, Okla., in 1960. Bishop-elect Taylor’s parents and two of his siblings and their families still live in Ponca City, which is on the Arkansas River in northern Oklahoma.
As a seminarian Bishop-elect Taylor studied at St. Meinrad Seminary College in Indiana and the North American College in Rome where he took classes at the Gregorian University. He was ordained a priest on Aug. 2, 1980 in his home parish, St. Mary in Ponca City. Serving among Catholics who are Hispanic has been an emphasis of Bishop-elect Taylor’s ministry since his ordination. His first assignment was to Sacred Heart Parish in Oklahoma City where he began Spanish Masses at Clinton and Hinton, Okla. From 1982-1986 he served in Queen of All Saints mission in Sayre, which included ministering to the Hispanic population in a five-county area. In 1989 Bishop-elect Taylor earned a doctorate in biblical theology from Fordham University in New York City.
Bishop-elect Taylor also has served in various archdiocesan positions, including vicar for ministries; minister to priests; director of the permanent diaconate Program; chairman of the Presbyteral Council, Clergy Personnel Board and Clergy Retirement Board; and as a member of the Archdiocesan Finance Council. He is also a member of the board of trustees for Mount Saint Mary High School in Oklahoma City, a sister school to Mount Saint Mary Academy in Little Rock.
Bishop-elect Taylor was the founding pastor of St. Monica Parish in Edmond, Okla., in 1993, a total stewardship parish, where he served for 10 years. In 2003 he returned to his first assignment as a priest, Sacred Heart Parish, where he oversaw the final phase of its transition from being a predominately Anglo to a predominately Hispanic Catholic community. Seven of its nine weekend Masses are in Spanish, one is bilingual and one is in English.
The Archdiocese of Oklahoma City sponsored and staffed a parish in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, from 1963 to 2001. In 1981 Father Stanley Rother, an Oklahoma priest, was martyred there. After the local diocese of Solola took over the care of the parish in 2001, Oklahoma Catholics continued to provide assistance to the parish, its school, a local hospital and a new planned alcohol abuse treatment center, since 2005 under the direction of Bishop-elect Taylor. In September 2007 the cause of canonization for Father Rother was formally opened with Bishop-elect Taylor serving as the episcopal delegate for this process.
The Diocese of Little Rock was established Nov. 28, 1843. It covers the entire state of Arkansas whose 75 counties encompass 52,068 square miles. Registered Catholics comprise 116,605 of the state’s total population of 2,810,872.
For more information about Bishop-elect Taylor, see the Diocese of Little Rock Web site “New Bishop” page.
