NASHVILLE, Diocese of. - In the United States of America. Over an area of 42,022 miles, the diocese of N. today (1950 census) has 3,129,718 inhabitants and 37,852 Catholics. There are 116 diocesan priests and 29 religious. It has 56 parishes, 17 chapels, 30 missions, 96 stations, 4 hospitals. The Brothers of the Christian Schools have a college for boys and the Sisters of St. Dominic a college for girls.

The diocese of N. was erected by Gregory XVI on 28 July 1837. It resulted from a division of the diocese of Bardstown (today Louisville), which was restricted to the State of Kentucky, while N. covers the State of Tennessee. The first bishop was Msgr. Pius Miles, while Father Abell, who came from Bardstown in 1820, built the first church in Tennessee. After his first tour of the territory of his new diocese, Msgr. Miles declared that he had found no more than 300 Catholics.

The diocese became a suffragan of St. Louis on 8 Oct. 1847 and by 1852 already counted 5000 Catholics and 9 priests. In 1860 it was a theater of the civil war.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: J. G. Shea, History of the Catholic Church in the United States, III-IV, New York 1892; J. I. Lorigan, s. v. in Cath. Enc., X, pp. 704-705; The Official Catholic Directory, New York 1950, pp. 435-38.

Gastone Carrière

@incollection{ec8_nashville_diocesi_di, author = {Carrière, Gastone}, title = {Nashville, diocesi di}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {1666}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/nashville-diocesi-di} }

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Nashville, Diocese of

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