Rev. Robert Taylor, Advocate For Poor [Chicago Tribune, 1999]
By Meg McSherry Breslin and Tribune Staff Writer Chicago Tribune
Sep 21, 1999 Link
Rev. Robert Page Taylor didn't just preach about helping the poor and disenfranchised. He spent a lifetime living out that mission, first as a civil rights activist, then as a director of a halfway house and later as a licensed clinical social worker counseling substance abusers.
"He was just the ideal of what everybody wants in a priest," said his wife, Carvel Taylor. "He was tough and he was kind and he was forgiving, and he was open and funny, and he was very dedicated to the Episcopal Church."
Father Taylor, 67, an Episcopal priest for decades in Chicago, died Thursday in his home in Virginia Beach.
A native of Virginia, Father Taylor moved to Evanston to earn a master's of divinity degree in 1958 from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary.
He was one of 15 priests fined and sentenced to jail after they led a prayer pilgrimage in Jackson, Miss., to protest segregation in 1961. Father Taylor spent about three weeks in jail, but breach of peace charges were dropped.
While a seminarian in the late 1950s, Father Taylor began working at St. Leonard's, a halfway house for ex-convicts founded by Rev. James Jones. While there, he developed a love for the work and began his ministry in 1958 as a chaplain at Cook County Jail.
By the end of the decade, he joined Jones in helping build St. Leonard's from a small service for only a handful of ex-convicts to a well-regarded refuge for men looking to rebuild their lives. In 1963, he was appointed executive director of St. Leonard's and led the house until 1970.
When he first got involved with St. Leonard's, Father Taylor lived with his wife and children at the West Side halfway house in the midst of what was a ghetto. He opened himself up to the ex-convicts, counseled them and helped them get jobs.
"He was one of the greatest priests I've ever known," said Father Jones. "When he gave his heart and soul to the ex-prisoners, they learned people weren't down on them."
Father Taylor later joined the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago in 1980 as the director of the Office of Pastoral Care, which offers counseling and other assistance to priests and church members.
In 1987, he became director of program and mission for the diocese, which involved planning for mission parishes and setting the direction of diocesan services.
Father Taylor was also a clinical social worker and a senior certified addiction counselor, with a master's degree in social work from the University of Chicago. For many years, he worked as a counselor with his wife, also a social worker, and helped scores of people overcome addictions.
He retired from the diocese in 1992, then worked with his wife for several years and later as an interim rector of the Church of the Ascension in Chicago. He officially retired in 1996.
In addition to his wife, Father Taylor is survived by two daughters, Susan Amory and Mary Taylor; two sons, Joseph and Stephen; a sister, Elizabeth Tazewell; two brothers, Rev. Lewis Jerome Taylor and William Taylor; and six grandchildren. A service will be held Oct. 2 at 11 a.m. in Episcopal Church of the Ascension, 1133 N. LaSalle St., Chicago.