Nashville Bishop David Choby Dies At 70

NASHVILLE, TN — The Most Reverend David R. Choby, the 11th Bishop of Nashville, died Saturday night at Saint Thomas West Hospital following complications from a fall in February. Bishop Choby, who had led the diocese since 2006, was 70.

Choby was born in Nashville, baptized — and later installed as bishop — at the Cathedral of the Incarnation, graduated from Father Ryan and ordained as a priest at Saint Henry. He is only the second Bishop of Nashville to have been ordained a priest in the diocese following Bishop James Niedergeses. He is also only the second to die while in office, following Bishop Alphonse Smith. (For more updates on this story and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Middle Tennessee Patch morning newsletter.)

After spending one year at Aquinas College in Nashville, he entered seminary at St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa, and was ordained as a priest on Sept. 6, 1974 by Bishop Joseph A. Durick. He was associate pastor at St. Joseph Parish in Madison, administrator of St. Ann Parish in West Nashville, and from 1989 until his ordination as bishop, he served as pastor of St. John Vianney Parish in Gallatin.

Bishop Choby held a Canon Law degree from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and worked at the diocesan tribunal throughout most of his priesthood. He was on the faculty of The Pontifical College Josephinum, a seminary in Columbus, Ohio between 1984 and 1989. He was elected as diocesan administrator for the Diocese of Nashville after Bishop David Kmiec was installed as Bishop of Buffalo. Bishop Choby was installed fourteen months later as the 11th bishop of Nashville on Feb. 27, 2006.

He is survived by his sister, Diane C. Dyche of Fort Worth, Texas; two nieces, one nephew and nine great-nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Cathedral of the Incarnation. It will conclude with Office of the Dead at 7:30 p.m.

On Friday, a visitation will be held from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at St. John Vianney. It will conclude with the recitation of the rosary followed by a covered dish dinner.

Funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10:30 a.m. Saturday at Sagrado Corazon at the Catholic Pastoral Center. The burial will be at 3 p.m. at Calvary Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to the Diocese of Nashville’s Seminarian Education Fund.