Anthony Taylor (bishop)
Anthony Basil Taylor was born April 24, 1954, in Fort Worth, Texas, the eldest of seven children; the family moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma, in 1960. He studied at the University of Oklahoma, Saint Meinrad Seminary (B.A. in history), and the Pontifical North American College in Rome (1976-1980), and later earned a doctorate in biblical studies from Fordham University (1989). He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City on August 2, 1980.
As an Oklahoma priest, Taylor built his career around Hispanic and immigrant ministry, later pastoring Sacred Heart Parish in Oklahoma City, the archdiocese's largest Hispanic parish, and founding St. Monica Parish in Edmond. He served as delegate for the canonization cause of martyred missionary Fr. Stanley Rother.
Pope Benedict XVI appointed him the fifth Bishop of Little Rock on April 10, 2008; he was installed June 5, 2008. As bishop he has been nationally identified with immigration advocacy, serving on the boards of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) and Catholic Relief Services. He is regarded as a Francis-aligned, pastorally progressive bishop. As of mid-2026 he continues to govern the diocese; at age 72 he has not reached the customary retirement-submission age of 75, and no successor has been named.
Bishop Taylor's record on the Traditional Latin Mass is defined by his prompt and full implementation of Traditionis Custodes. In a statement dated July 16, 2021 -- within days of the motu proprio -- he ruled that public celebration of the older rite in Arkansas would occur only in the two FSSP personal parishes, St. John the Baptist in Cabot and Our Lady of Sorrows in Springdale. The diocesan-parish Latin Masses that had existed at Holy Redeemer in El Dorado, St. Peter the Fisherman in Mountain Home, and St. Michael in Cherokee Village were ended. Non-FSSP priests were told they could offer the old Mass only privately, and only with the bishop's permission, and he affirmed he would establish no additional personal parishes for it.
He also drew an explicit line against reform-of-the-reform practices, stating that elements of the traditional Latin Mass are not to be grafted onto the Novus Ordo, whether in Latin or the vernacular. On these deeds he sits among the stricter, quicker-to-comply bishops rather than among those who sheltered diocesan communities under the widest possible reading of the law.
The mitigating side of the ledger is real: he did not attempt to expel or starve the FSSP. He preserved both Fraternity parishes intact and, on March 19, 2022, personally dedicated a newly built church for the growing FSSP congregation of St. John the Baptist in Cabot. The result is a bishop who curtailed the diocesan-priest Latin Mass and is firmly Francis-aligned, yet allowed the stable Traditional apostolate under the Fraternity to continue and even to expand. For a Traditional Catholic assessment, that is neither friend nor foe -- it is a mixed record.