[1] Among the early missionaries was Stephen Badin who set out on foot for Kentucky on in 1793, sent by Bishop John Carroll of the Diocese of Baltimore.

For the next 14 years Badin traveled on foot, horseback and boat between widely scattered Catholic settlements in Kentucky and the Northwest Territory.

During his tenure, Dozier implemented the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, including insisting on liturgical changes and giving more important roles to the laity in diocesan affairs.

[6] He also established the diocesan Housing Corporation, the local affiliate of Catholic Charities, the Ministry to the Sick, and a weekly newspaper called Common Sense.

[8] During his tenure, Stafford revised the structure of the Pastoral Office, improved the fiscal conditions of the diocese, and concentrated on the evangelization of African Americans.

To replace him in Memphis, John Paul II selected Auxiliary Bishop J. Terry Steib of the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1993.

One of Steib's primary accomplishments was reopening eight Catholic schools in Memphis that had been closed for financial reasons by a previous bishop.

In June 2018, the Vatican sent Archbishops Wilton Gregory of Atlanta and Bernard Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis to Memphis to conduct a visitation of the diocese to investigate complaints about Holley's leadership.

[21][22] The following day, Holley told the Catholic News Agency that he believed he was removed from office as "revenge" for advising Pope Benedict XVI against appointing Cardinal Donald Wuerl, for the job of Vatican Secretary of State in 2012.

The plaintiff claimed that Reverend Juan Carlos Duran at Church of the Ascension in Raleigh had sexually abused him in 1999 when he was 14 years old.

[29][26] The diocese was sued in September 2006 by a man who claimed to have been sexually abused by Reverend Daniel Dupree in Memphis when the plaintiff was a teenager in the late 1980s.

He admitted in a letter to diocese officials to having abused 14 boys and young men A court dismissed the suit in 2008, stating that the statute of limitations had passed.

[36][37] After his installation as bishop in 2019, Talley had ordered a comprehensive review of prior sexual abuse allegations by the Diocese of Memphis, using an outside firm.