The Works of Bishop Maurice Taylor

The Bishop Emeritus of Galloway, Maurice Taylor, died peacefully at Dundonald House Care Home, Dundonald, Ayrshire on 14th June 2023.  He was 97 years old and a bishop for 42 years.

Maurice Taylor was born in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, on 5th May 1926, the eldest of four children. He attended St Cuthbert’s Primary, Burnbank; St Aloysius College, Glasgow and Our Lady’s High School, Motherwell. He studied philosophy for two years in Blairs College, Aberdeen. After Military Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps in India and Egypt, he returned to his ecclesiastical studies in Rome where he was ordained a priest on 2nd July 1950 for the newly established Diocese of Motherwell.

After a year as assistant priest in Saint Bartholomew’s, Coatbridge, he returned to Rome in 1952 where he received his doctorate in theology in 1954.

Another year as assistant priest followed at Saint Bernadette’s, Motherwell, before he was appointed to the staff of Saint Peter’s College, Cardross in August 1955.  He spent the next ten years there, teaching philosophy and, later, theology.

From 1965 to 1974, he was rector of the Royal Scots College, Valladolid. To mark the bicentenary of the re-establishment of the college in Valladolid in 1771, he published a history entitled ‘The Scots College in Spain’ in 1971 and, the same year, was named Prelate of Honour to the Holy Father.

On his return to Scotland in 1974, he was appointed parish priest of Our Lady of Lourdes, East Kilbride, a position he held until his elevation to bishop.

He was nominated Bishop of Galloway on 4th April 1981 and was ordained by Cardinal Gordon Gray at an open-air Mass in the grounds of Fatima House, Coodham on 9th June 1981, the Feast of St Columba.

With his fluent command of Spanish and initiated by an invitation from the Catholic Institute for International Relations, Bishop Taylor became a regular visitor to Central America, raising awareness of poverty and other suffering experienced by the peoples of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica. On several occasions, he served for short periods in Central American parishes, an association which he described as one of the most enriching experiences of his life.

For more than ten years Bishop Taylor served on the Episcopal Board of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) and was its chairman from 1997-2002.

Bishop Taylor led numerous pilgrimages to the Holy Land, a place for which he had great affection, showing solidarity and establishing friendships with the people who lived there.

In retirement, Bishop Taylor continued to celebrate Masses and deliver talks throughout the diocese of Galloway and beyond. He wrote several books on a variety of topics including an autobiography. Until his death, he was the oldest living Roman Catholic bishop in Great Britain.

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During his life Bishop Maurice Taylor, RIP wrote a number of different books and papers, a number of which are still in publication today. Below, you can find details of a number of his works.

Gratefully Yours

When I retired from being Bishop of Galloway in 2004, I left with many memories (mostly happy!) of my 23 years as bishop of the diocese.

Here I am now, almost seventeen years later, and still with those memories. In fact, the present pandemic and the lockdown meant that the thought came to me, ‘Why not write them down?’ That idea then became ‘Why not write also about my story of the years before I became a bishop? So arose the present book. It has occupied many hours which otherwise would have been spent less usefully and less pleasantly in these days of retirement and lockdown. I have called the result GRATEFULLY YOURS because I am aware of how much I owe to the goodness of God and of countless others.

I hesitate to call the book an autobiography. I think of a genuine autobiography as a long book with a thorough description of every phase of the author’s life. On the other hand, my book, though it does speak of each part of my life, for some parts it does so rather briefly. So my tale is told of my childhood, schooldays, life in the army and life in the seminary;  then from ordination as a priest and, even more as a bishop, the story is more detailed.  I hope that you will enjoy the read and even, with me, be grateful for story I tell.

Postscript: 
In connection with my account of visits to the diocese of Santa Cruz del Quiche in Guatemala, I am delighted to report that, on 23 April 2021, three priests, six catechists and a boy aged 12, all members of the diocese, were beatified as martyrs for the faith. The priests are Spanish missionaries from Barcelona, Navarre and Asturias, the lay people are indigenous peasants; nine were assassinated in the 1980s and one in 1991. 

Other Works

A selection of Podcasts