According to the Saint Cloud Diocese [ View ], Father Mel Taylor is coming home from the Bahamas to become pastor of the Church of Saint John the Baptist, Collegeville.
Father Mel Taylor was shipped off to the Bahamas in the early 1990s, following allegations of misconduct in Cold Spring, Minnesota and at Saint John’s Prep School. Father Mel Taylor also served in the Bronx.
According to a former monk, Fr. Mel Taylor is alleged to have at least on victim in both the Prep School dorm and in Cold Spring. It has also been alleged that Fr. Taylor was making advances toward another monk. These advances were brought to the attention of Abbot Timothy Kelly. Timothy Kelly’s response was something like, “I know Mel, he wouldn’t do that”.
Mel Taylor made professed solemn vows to Saint John’s Abbey on July 11, 1963. He was ordained on June 3, 1967.
According to the Saint John’s Abbey Quarterly (Spring, 1991):
Shortly after his late February return from the annual visit to Saint Augustine’s Monastery in Nassau, Abbot Jerome announced the appointment of a new Prior and a new Treasurer of this Bahama Benedictine community founded by Saint John’s Abbey in 1947·
Father Mel Taylor, 55, will become the Prior of Saint Augustine’s on 15 September, succeeding Father Theophile Brown. Professed as a monk in 1963 and ordained a priest in 1967, Father Mel is Saint John’s only F.B.I. (Foreign Born Irishman), having been born in Easkey, County Sligo, Ireland.
Since his ordination, he has served as an associate pastor of Saint Anselm’s and Saint Benedict’s Churches in the Bronx, New York, and as the pastor of Saint Bernard’s Church in Saint Paul and Saint Boniface Church in Cold Spring. He was also the Dean of Students at the Preparatory School for several years. Last fall he went to the Bahamas for a pastoral sabbatical and has now joined the ranks of those many confreres who have discovered that “It’s Better in the Bahamas.”
