David Scotchie

Ask Fr. David Scotchie how faith gets passed on, and he will tell you a story. That is what people notice about him first. His homilies land not because they are polished performances but because they feel like something a trusted friend would say to you over coffee, honest and practical and rooted in real life. One longtime parishioner wrote that even though their community never built a brick and mortar church, it was Fr. David's loving guidance that helped them build a real church family. Another described him as a priest whose humble soul is always equipped for leading people heaven bound. That kind of loyalty follows him. Fr. David was ordained in 1993 for the Diocese of Orlando, and his path began at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in Indiana, where he earned a Master of Arts in Christian Studies and a Master of Divinity. He has served in six parishes over more than three decades, spent time as the campus minister at the University of Central Florida, and continued his own studies along the way, earning a master's degree in management from UCF and a Doctor of Ministry in preaching from the Aquinas Institute in St. Louis. He now serves as pastor of Nativity Catholic Church in Longwood, a parish where at least one couple has written that they are simply happy to be with Father David again.

Fr. David is the kind of person people remember long after they have moved on to a different parish or a different season of life. Someone once called him one of the many wise people who have helped them remain happy. An elderly mother, despite struggling with memory issues, heard his name and immediately broke into a huge smile. "He looks good," she said. That is who Fr. David is. He stays with people. He believes that preaching is not just another task for a parish priest but a way of life, and you can see that belief in everything he does. He writes a weekly column for the Florida Catholic that reads the same way his homilies sound, like he is sitting with you and working through something real. Those columns earned him third place for Best Regular Column in Scripture and Theology at the 2026 Catholic Media Association awards. He was invited back to his alma mater, Saint Meinrad, to deliver the annual Marten Lecture in Homiletics, and he teaches homiletics for both Saint Meinrad's Permanent Deacon Formation Program and the Diocese of Orlando's program. He is also the co-author of Rites of Passage: Preaching Baptisms, Weddings, and Funerals. But if you ask Fr. David what his priesthood is about, he will not talk about any of that. He will tell you it is to show and tell in word and deed how much the Lord loves us, so that we live in friendship with God and in solidarity with one another. "As Jesus said," he adds, "'I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.'"