J. Mark Spalding
Joseph Mark Spalding was born on January 13, 1965, in Lebanon, Kentucky, the oldest of three children, and grew up on the family farm in Washington County, in the Kentucky Holy Land settled by early American Catholics. He attended Fredericktown Elementary School and Bethlehem High School in Bardstown, graduating in 1983. He studied philosophy at Saint Meinrad Seminary in Indiana, earning a bachelor's degree in history in 1987, then studied at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, earning a master's degree and a Bachelor of Sacred Theology in 1990 and a Licentiate of Canon Law in 1992.
He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Louisville on August 3, 1991, by Archbishop Thomas Kelly, at the Basilica of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown. He served as parochial vicar at St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral, St. Augustine in Lebanon, and St. Margaret Mary in Louisville, then as pastor of Immaculate Conception in LaGrange from 1999 to 2011 and of Holy Trinity in Louisville from 2011. He was judicial vicar of Louisville from 1998 to 2011 and vicar general from 2011 until his appointment as a bishop.
Pope Francis appointed him the twelfth Bishop of Nashville on November 21, 2017, and he was ordained and installed on February 2, 2018, succeeding Bishop David Choby, who had died the previous June. Under his episcopate the diocese's Catholic population grew from about 84,000 in 2018 to 126,251 by 2026, and he led a capital campaign raising more than 51.6 million dollars. The restoration of the tornado-damaged Church of the Assumption, the diocese's Latin Mass parish, and its reopening in March 2025, took place under his watch.
- 2021-07In the July 2021 diocesan survey following Traditionis custodes, Spalding's position was summarized as: priests currently celebrating the Mass in Latin may continue to do so as long as they are working for unity in the Church. The survey summary, not a decree text, is the source. ↗
- 2025-03-30Celebrated the reopening Mass at the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Germantown on Sunday, March 30, 2025, after five years of restoration following the March 2020 tornado, with Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke present for the reopening weekend. The reopening Sunday High Mass itself was celebrated in the reformed rite; the parish's Latin Mass schedule resumed in the restored church thereafter. ↗
- 2026-06-18The Tennessean reported the Church of the Assumption as Nashville's only official Traditional Latin Mass parish, its designation as such approved by Spalding after Pope Francis's restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass, and reported its temporary closure from June 2026 after the pastor announced immediate closure over fire-safety concerns regarding the church tower. The designation date is not given in the report; the action date here is the report date. ↗
- 2026-10-18Sunday Masses at the Church of the Assumption resumed at the standard schedule and in the standard manner after construction work limiting access to the building was completed, according to the parish community blog. ↗
Bishop Spalding's record on the older Missal is one of undisturbed continuation crowned by a designation. In the July 2021 survey after Traditionis custodes his position was summarized as allowing priests currently celebrating Mass in Latin to continue as long as they worked for unity in the Church, and the Tennessean later reported that Assumption's designation as the diocese's official Traditional Latin Mass parish was approved by Spalding after Pope Francis's restrictions. The parish itself had been the diocese's Latin Mass centre before the motu proprio, drawing two-thirds of its parishioners for the Latin Mass in 2020.
The designation is a governing act of his own, not mere witness: it fixed the parish's status under the new regime rather than leaving it to drift, and Spalding personally celebrated its reopening Mass on March 30, 2025, after five years of post-tornado restoration, with Cardinal Burke present for the weekend. The parish schedule now lists Sunday Latin Low and High Masses and weekday Latin Masses, and Sunday Masses resumed there on October 18, 2026 after a temporary building closure.
A debt is stated openly: no decree text for the designation was retrieved, so the designation rests on the Tennessean's report and the parish's current standing, not on a quoted decree. A further caution is that the parish schedule labels its Masses by language rather than by Missal, so the 1962 identification rests on the designation report. Even with those debts, the direction is clear: the provision was preserved by his own act, and the board row agrees.