The bishop who named Princess Lilibet after Harry and Meghan is a former newspaper editor and chief of staff to Richard Nixon, whom he called ‘our liberal House’.
- Reverend John Harvey Taylor was one of Richard Nixon’s close confidants.
- Taylor was previously editor of the twice-weekly Chula Vista Star News in the 1970s.
The bishop who baptized Meghan and Harry’s daughter, Princess Lilibet, was a newspaper editor and chief of staff to disgraced former US President Richard Nixon.
The Rev. John Harvey Taylor, Bishop of Los Angeles, baptized the 21-month-old from the Sussexes at her home in Montecito, California on Friday.
Lilibet’s christening saw her royal title ‘Princess’ used formally for the first time, giving the first indication that the Sussexes will use the titles for their children.
The small ceremony — led by the man described as one of Nixon’s closest confidants, and whom Nixon himself described as “our House liberal” — was attended by 20 to 30 friends at his Montecito mansion.
King Charles, Queen Camilla and the Prince and Princess of Wales were invited to the California ceremony last Friday but declined, People magazine reported.
The Rev. John Harvey Taylor, Bishop of Los Angeles, baptized Sussex’s daughter, Lilibet, on Friday.
Right Reverend John Harvey Taylor (center) is a former newspaper editor and chief of staff to disgraced former US President Richard Nixon (left)
Before becoming Bishop of Los Angeles, Taylor was a reporter and then editor for the weekly Chula Vista Star News in the 1970s.
Nixon, who died in 1994, was the 37th president of the US and the only one to resign after the Watergate scandal.
A profile in the Los Angeles Times described Bishop Taylor as one of Nixon’s closest confidantes in recent years and as a co-executor of his estate.
Nixon, a Republican, used to call Bishop Taylor “a liberal in our House.”
Nixon resigned in 1974 after being implicated in the Watergate scandal following a cover-up when five men associated with his election campaign team were arrested following a raid on the offices of the Democratic Party’s national headquarters.
Taylor was a researcher and editorial assistant to the former president before becoming his later chief of staff in 1984, ten years after Nixon left the White House.
Taylor left office in 1990 and was succeeded by his future wife Kathy O’Connor, whom he married in 2002.
He was later ordained a priest in 2004, and was subsequently appointed vicar of St. John’s Episcopal Church and School in Rancho Santa Margarita.
Bishop Taylor was elected as the seventh Bishop of Los Angeles for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in December 2016 and took office in December 2017.
He is the father of four and grandfather of two.
Lilibet’s christening saw her royal title ‘Princess’ used formally for the first time, giving the first indication that the Sussexes will use the titles for their children.
Lilibet’s small ceremony (pictured) was attended by 20 to 30 friends of the Sussexes at their Montecito mansion.
The diocese’s website says it has “dedicated itself to promoting reconciliation, transparency.”
He adds: “In calls to leadership in the church, whether lay or ordained, encourage the exercise of empathy and curiosity as tools of evangelization, to enrich relationships and build new ones across the barriers of difference and prejudice according to race, language, geography, orientation, identification, age, and socioeconomics.’