Anthony Taylor (bishop)

Anthony Basil Taylor (born April 24, 1954) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who has been bishop of the Diocese of Little Rock in Arkansas since 2008. He was a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma from 1980 to 2008, interrupted by studies in New York at Fordham University. Much of his career has focused on service to the Hispanic community.

Anthony Taylor was born in Fort Worth, Texas, on April 24, 1954, the oldest of seven children born to Basil and Rachel (Roth) Taylor. His parents and grandparents on both sides were long-time residents of Fort Worth. Two of his grandparents are converts to Catholicism (his mother's father from Judaism and his father's mother from Protestantism). The 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 in Norman, Oklahoma, for two years and then entered Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in St. Meinrad, Indiana, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in history. From 1976 to 1980, Taylor attended the seminary at the Pontifical North American College in Rome while studying theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University.

Taylor was ordained a priest by Archbishop Charles Salatka for the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City on August 2, 1980, at St. Mary Parish in Ponca City.

After his ordination, the diocese assigned him to Sacred Heart Parish in 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.

Taylor studied at Fordham University in New York City during the summers of 1984 and 1985, then attended the university full-time from 1986 to 1988. At the same time, he served Holy Rosary Parish in the Bronx. Taylor earned a doctorate in 1989. The title of his dissertation was "The Master-Servant Type Scene in the Parables of Jesus".

Upon his return to Oklahoma in 1989, Salatka named Taylor as the vicar for ministries of the archdiocese, a post he held for 20 years. 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 newly ordained priests in their first year of ministry, and for priests in their first year as pastors.

Taylor served as parochial vicar of four Oklahoma parishes from 1990 to 1993: