The Diocese of Nashville (Latin: Dioecesis Nashvillensis) is a diocese of the Catholic Church in the central part of Tennessee in the United States. Erected in 1837, it is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Louisville. The bishop is J. Mark Spalding.
The Diocese of Nashville is the largest diocese in Tennessee by population. The Cathedral of the Incarnation in Nashville, Tennessee, is the seat of the bishop.
== Statistics ==
The Diocese of Nashville encompasses 38 counties spread over 16,302 square miles of Middle Tennessee. Its Catholic population has been estimated at 90,390, which represents about 3.4% of the total population in the diocese. As of 2016, Mass was offered in Spanish, Vietnamese, Latin, and Korean. The diocese has 75 priests and 70 permanent deacons serving 59 churches. There are 32 seminarians currently studying for the priesthood.
== History ==
=== 1808 to 1860 ===
In 1808, Pope Pius VII erected the Diocese of Bardstown, a huge diocese in the American South and Midwest. The new state of Tennessee was part of this diocese. Pope Gregory XVI erected the Diocese of Nashville on July 28, 1837, taking all of Tennessee from the Diocese of Bardstown and making it a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Holy Rosary Cathedral, located where the Tennessee State Capitol now stands, became the first cathedral of the diocese.
Gregory XVI selected Richard Miles to serve as the first Bishop of Nashville. Arriving alone in Nashville, Miles took up residence in a boarding house and almost immediately fell seriously ill with a fever. A priest travelling through Nashville helped Miles recover. His parishioners consisted of approximately 100 families scattered throughout the state. Miles traveled on horseback to meet with them.
During his tenure, Miles ordained the first priest in Tennessee, and established a seminary and a hospital, run by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth from Bardstown, Kentucky, and an orphanage run by the sisters of St. Dominic. He dedicated the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin of the Seven Sorrows in Nashville in 1848 to replace the Cathedral of the Holy Rosary. In 1859, Pope Pius IX appointed James Whelan as coadjutor bishop of the diocese to assist Miles.
=== 1860 to 1894 ===
When Miles died in 1860, Whelan automatically succeeded him as bishop of Nashville. He enlarged the cathedral and established an academy, boarding school, and orphanage. Due to the stresses of being bishop during the American Civil War, Whelan resigned as bishop of Nashville in 1864. Pius IX replaced Whelan with Patrick Feehan of the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
During the summer and fall of 1866, Feehan worked to relieve the suffering of those suffering from a cholera outbreak in Nashville. The diocese was hard hit by bank closures and the depression of 1873. To help his parishioners, Feehan encouraged a group of men to create a fraternal organization that would be known as Catholic Knights of America. In 1877 and 1878, the diocese suffered yellow fever outbreaks, resulting in the deaths of 13 religious sisters and nine priests, including the vicar-general. In 1880, Pope Leo XIII appointed Feehan as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago.
The next bishop of Nashville was Joseph Rademacher from the Diocese of Fort Wayne, named by Leo XIII in 1883. Ten years later, he was appointed bishop of Fort Wayne by Leo XIII. Rademacher's successor in Nashville was Thomas Byrne of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, selected by the pope in 1894.
=== 1894 to 1954 ===
In 1893, the diocese contained 18,000 Catholics, 38 churches, and 30 priests. By the time of Byrne's death 30 years later in 1923, there were 25,000 Catholics, 58 churches, and 53 priests. One of Byrne's most significant accomplishments was the construction of a new cathedral. Unhappy with the size of the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin of the Seven Sorrows, Byrne acquired new property in 1902 and completed the Cathedral of the Incarnation in 1914. As part of the cathedral's complex, he also built a new rectory and school. St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville was also established during his tenure.
After Byrne died in 1923, Pope Pius IX appointed Alphonse Smith of the Diocese of Indianapolis as the new bishop of Nashville. When Smith came to the diocese he found there were only a few native priests from the diocese itself and ten seminarians. He worked to change the situation and within two years the number of seminarians from Tennessee had grown to 60, and 26 priests were ordained for the diocese during his episcopate. The monastery of the Poor Clares was established in Memphis, Tennessee. Several new parishes and schools were also established. In 1925, he founded Father Ryan High School. Smith died in 1935.
In 1936, William Adrian of the Diocese of Davenport was appointed the seventh bishop of the Diocese of Nashville by Pope Pius XII. In 1937, Pius XI transferred the diocese to the new Archdiocese of Louisville from the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Adrian, who became known as a "man who gets things done", oversaw the creation of several parishes, the acquisition of a new episcopal residence in East Nashville, Tennessee, the remodeling of the Cathedral, and the establishment of a diocesan newspaper and the National Council of Catholic Women.
=== 1954 to 1975 ===
In 1954, Adrian ordered the racial desegregation of all parochial schools in Nashville and Davidson County, far ahead of public school desegregation. On December 11, 1963, Pope Paul VI appointed Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Durick of the Diocese of Mobile-Birmingham as coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Nashville with right of succession to Adrian. That same year, Durick and seven other colleagues wrote the letter "A Call For Unity". It called on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and "outsiders" to stop the Birmingham campaign of protests and boycotts and let the courts work toward racial integration. King responded with his "Letter from Birmingham Jail", voicing disappointment in the white clergy, who should be "among our strongest allies". This, and the message he got from Vatican II, led Durick to become a strong voice for civil rights . He was called a heretic and a communist by some in his congregation. From 1968 to 1969, Durick faced boycotts of his public appearances.
The Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia Congregation opened Aquinas College in Nashville in 1961 to provide a teaching education to its novices. When Adrian resigned in 1969, Durick automatically became the new bishop of Nashville.
On June 20, 1970, Pope Paul VI erected the new Diocese of Memphis, taking the Tennessee counties west of the Tennessee River from the Diocese of Nashville. Due to health problems, Durick retired in 1975.
=== 1975 to present ===
In 1975, James Niedergeses was made bishop. In 1988, Pope John Paul II created the Diocese of Knoxville, taking the eastern counties of Tennessee from the Diocese of Nashville. Niedergeses retired in 1992. Auxiliary Bishop Edward Kmiec of the Diocese of Trenton replaced him. Twelve years later, in 2004, Kmiec transferred to the Diocese of Buffalo.
The next bishop of Nashville was David Choby, named by Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. A study released in 2014 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., cited the Diocese of Nashville as having the 8th highest rate of conversions to the Catholic Church in the United States. Choby died in 2017.
Pope Francis named J. Mark Spalding as the bishop of Nashville in 2017. Spalding had previously served as vicar general for the Archdiocese of Louisville.
=== Sexual abuse cases ===
In 1991, Ron Dickman left the priesthood. The next year, he was forced to resign as executive director of the Crisis Intervention Center in Nashville due to sexual assault allegations.
David Brown, a Father Ryan alumnus, alleged in 2005 that Paul Haas, the biology teacher at Father Ryan, had sexually assaulted him several times in 1961 when he was 15-years-old. Brown had reported Haas to the diocese in 1996. Brown accepted a small financial settlement from the diocese. The Tennessee Supreme Court in 2005 found that Giacosa and Bishop Niedergeses were aware in 1986 that McKeown "had sexual contact with approximately thirty boys over the past 14 years." The diocese sent McKeown to inpatient treatment in Hartford, Connecticut, from October 1986 to March 1987. In 1989, McKeown presented a boy with a condom at a Christmas party. At that point, Niedergeses ordered McKeown to leave diocesan property. However, the diocese continued to pay McKeown until early 1994.
Between 1995 and 1999, the Supreme Court noted that McKeown sexually abused two minor boys. The boys' parents reported the abuse to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, who arrested McKeown. He was convicted of rape in 1999 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. McKeown died in prison in 2018.
In February 2020, the diocese released the names of 25 clergy with credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors while serving there. Several were deceased and none were in active ministry.
== Bishops ==
=== Bishops of Nashville ===
Richard Pius Miles (1837–1860)
James Whelan (1860–1864; coadjutor bishop 1859–1860)
Patrick Feehan (1865–1880), appointed Bishop and later Archbishop of Chicago
Joseph Rademacher (1883–1893), appointed Bishop of Fort Wayne
Thomas Sebastian Byrne (1894–1923)
Alphonse John Smith (1923–1935)
William Lawrence Adrian (1936–1969)
Joseph Aloysius Durick (1969–1975; coadjutor bishop 1963–1969)
James Daniel Niedergeses (1975–1992)
Edward Urban Kmiec (1992–2004), appointed Bishop of Buffalo
David Raymond Choby (2005–2017)
J. Mark Spalding (2018–present)
=== Other diocesan priests who became bishops ===
Richard Scannell, appointed Bishop of Concordia in 1887 and later Bishop of Omaha
John Baptist Morris, appointed Coadjutor Bishop (in 1906) and later Bishop of Little Rock
John Patrick Farrelly, appointed Bishop of Cleveland in 1909
Samuel Alphonsus Stritch, appointed Bishop of Toledo in 1921 and later Archbishop of Milwaukee, Archbishop of Chicago, and Pro-Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (elevated to Cardinal in 1946)
Fernand J. Cheri, appointed Auxiliary Bishop of New Orleans in 2015
James Mark Beckman, appointed Bishop of Knoxville in 2024
== Education ==
=== High schools ===
Father Ryan High School – Nashville
Pope Saint John Paul II Preparatory School – Hendersonville
St. Cecilia Academy – Nashville
Chesterton Academy of the Incarnation – Franklin (opened in 2022)
=== Colleges ===
Aquinas College – Nashville (run by the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia)
== See also ==
List of the Catholic dioceses of the United States
== References ==
== External links ==
official website