From the Bishop

As a missionary, St. Boniface would be proud

Cutting down ‘Odin’s oak’ to grow the Church

Published: June 18, 2024   

By Bishop Anthony B. Taylor

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Boniface on what is the 16th anniversary of my ordination to be your bishop. 

Many of you were not yet even in the seminary in 2008 and most of you were not yet priests. Over the course of these last 16 years, I have had the privilege of ordaining 52 priests — 49 for the Diocese of Little Rock and three for Subiaco. 

And I consider it to be significant personally that my ordination to the episcopacy fell on the feast of St. Boniface. Some of the reasons are superficial. 

For instance, he was from England and I have an English last name. He was known as the great apostle to Germany, and I am part German, as is much of our diocese. Indeed, we have a couple of historically German St. Boniface parishes here in Arkansas, one of which now has many Spanish-speaking parishioners. That is where it all comes together.

St. Bonface was a missionary and so he did everything he could to adapt himself to the needs of his people. He learned German, he proclaimed the Gospel, he challenged wrong behavior and he courageously cut down an oak tree sacred to the pagan god Odin. 

And apart from the business about Odin’s oak, isn’t that what you and I have done here in Arkansas over the course of the last 16 years? Most of you have learned Spanish — I don’t know of any other historically English-speaking diocese that has such a high percentage of young priests able to minister in Spanish. We now have weekend Mass in Spanish in 52 of our 130 churches, and fully one-third of our people at Mass on a given weekend are attending Mass in Spanish. St. Bonface the missionary would be proud, as am I.

St. Boniface was also a reformer. Luckily I came into a diocese that was already in good shape, thanks to the excellent shepherding under my predecessors in the episcopacy, strong leaders among our priests and high quality laymen in leadership positions. Even so, there have been some difficult situations to arise over the course of the last 16 years, and I am very grateful to you for your support and for giving me the benefit of the doubt in difficult situations.

And like with St. Boniface, there still remains much to be done. I can give you a long list of areas where many of our people are confused and need direction and guidance. Pro-life issues from the first moment of conception to natural death and every stage in between. Social justice issues ranging from the right to immigrate to the obligation to fight racism. Issues of medical ethics and sexual morality, and so on. 

For instance, when I reminded our high schoolers that 1) sex should wait until after marriage, 2) that marriage required a man and a woman, and 3) that our physical body determined whether we were male or female, the response of some of them was surprising and shocking — this is just standard Catholic teaching, and they were in a Catholic school. 

For some of them, it was like I was cutting down Odin’s oak. I’ll bet some of you have had a similar experience when you proclaimed the truth of the Gospel to persons who were not open to receiving it. Jesus had this experience continually in his interaction with the religious leaders of his day. 

But today, my heart is mainly filled with gratitude. Gratitude to God for having given me the privilege of becoming your bishop 16 years ago. Gratitude to you for your constant support over all these years. And gratitude to both you and God for your priestly ministry, which is doing so much good for the people God has entrusted to our care. I still have five years left before I turn 75 — let’s make the most of it! God bless.

Bishop Anthony B. Taylor delivered this homily June 5 during the priest retreat.

Please read our Comments Policy before posting.