John Edward Taylor

John Edward Taylor, OMI (November 15, 1914 – September 9, 1976) was an American Roman Catholic bishop. The first American-born bishop to head a European diocese, he was Bishop of Stockholm in Sweden from 1962 to 1976. Early life and priesthood Taylor was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, to Robert and Mary (née Pohl) Taylor. After attending St. Henry’s Preparatory Seminary in Belleville, he took his vows for the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1934. He continued his studies in Rome, where he attended the Angelicum and the Gregorian. On May 25, 1940, Taylor was ordained to the priesthood in Rome. He earned his Ph.D. at Ottawa University in 1941, with a thesis on the philosophy of John Dewey. Returning to the United States, he taught at the Oblates’ minor seminary in Belleville before serving as superior of Oblate seminaries in Carthage, Missouri (1947-1953) and in Pass Christian, Mississippi (1953-1958). In 1958, Taylor was chosen to lead a mission to revive the Catholic Church in Greenland. He first established a headquarters in the Copenhagen suburb of Herlev and, in 1960, became the first Catholic priest to settle in Greenland since the Reformation.