The 'Intermountain Catholic' celebrates its 125-year anniversary

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SALT LAKE CITY — For more than a century, the Intermountain Catholic has brought news of the Diocese of Salt Lake City to its readers in Utah and beyond, celebrating joyous events such as priestly ordinations and sharing sorrows such as the closing of Catholic schools.

Originally, Catholic news in the Utah area came in the form of the Colorado Catholic, which was published in Denver from 1884 to 1899; the first issue of the Intermountain Catholic came out on Oct. 7 of the latter year.

Its arrival was heralded by other local publications such as the Deseret Evening News and the Salt Lake Tribune. “The removal of The Catholic (sic) from Denver to Salt Lake City may be justly regarded as a feather in the headgear of Utah’s capital. It is a sign that here is the center of the Catholic interest and population in the Rocky Mountains,” wrote Charles W. Penrose, editor of the Deseret Evening News.

That inaugural issue included headlines such as “Apostolic Delegate to the Philippines,” “The Jesuits and the Jews,” and “Pitfalls of Satan.”

The Intermountain Catholic published weekly until 1920. For the next three years, there was no local Catholic publication. From 1923 to 1926 a diocesan periodical was put out monthly; over the years it had three different names. The Intermountain Catholic was restarted in 1926 and was published until 1937, when the name was changed to the Register, Intermountain Catholic Edition. In 1953 the publication was known as the Intermountain Catholic Register; it reverted to Intermountain Catholic in 1981. Throughout the years, our newspaper has won numerous awards for its stories and photography.

“Why is a good diocesan newspaper important for us?” the Most Rev. William K. Weigand, seventh Bishop of Salt Lake City, asked in a May 15, 1981 column in these pages.

Answering his own question, Bishop Weigand wrote that the Intermountain Catholic “can keep us informed about our brothers and sisters and their significant events in other parishes. It can help unite us, give us a sense of diocese and statewide, worldwide Church. Ideas can be shared. Enthusiasm can be maintained.”

Over the last 125 years reporters have gone throughout the diocese to write about the local Church. For example, we chronicled Our Lady of the Holy Trinity Abbey from its establishment on April 5, 1947 to its closing Mass on Aug. 27, 2017. The dedication ceremonies for St. Joseph High School were covered in 1954; among the most recent accolades Jayhawks students have achieved are two National Merit Scholars as well as three Academic All State Athletes in 2024.

Traveling south, Intermountain Catholic reporters wrote about dedication of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Provo on Dec. 21, 1936. The parish was consecrated under the patronage of St. Francis of Assisi in 1945. Our newspaper was there when the parish dedicated its new church in Orem, and also was present at the parish’s 125th anniversary in 2017.

Similarly, we recorded the 2003 dedication of Christ the King Catholic Church in Cedar City, and the rededication of the renovated St. George Catholic Church in St. George in 2010.

News of the Utah’s missions also is carried regularly; for example, the July 10, 1981 issue reported on the dedication of  the first Catholic Church in Panguitch: “The church, which will hold about fifty people, was made from a remodeled mobile home. Cost of the project, $4100.00, was raised mostly by the sale of doughnuts baked by its missionary priest, Father Joseph H. Valine, O.P., pastor of Saint Bridget’s Mission, Milford. Father Valine makes the doughnuts each morning in his rectory kitchen and sells them to stores and at his mission stations.”

The Intermountain Catholic also has kept Utah Catholics apprised of diocesan news, such as the Sept. 26, 1976 Mass at the Salt Palace that drew 12,000 people “to celebrate a dual bicentennial observance: the founding of our country, and the Dominguez/Escalante Expedition into Utah in 1776,” according to the report.

On a smaller scale, we chronicled the inaugural Intercultural Marian Celebration in 2011, an annual event that has grown larger each year as Catholics gather to celebrate the Virgin Mary in her different representations throughout the world.

The ordinations of priests and deacons are of interest to most local Catholics, but some are more newsworthy than others, such as the May 18, 2006 celebration, “the first time since at least 1940 that four men were ordained for the diocese in the Cathedral of the Madeleine at the same time,” the May 27, 2006 Intermountain Catholic reported.

When the ordination of deacons again was permitted, we reported on the first class of deacons to be ordained for the diocese in 1976, and on all the classes since. In a similar way, we have carried news of the lay ecclesial minister formation programs in English and Spanish, which train members of the laity to be faith leaders in their parishes and the diocese.

Women and religious who have ministered in Utah have been chronicled as well; among them, the Benedictines who came in 1946 and left in 2010, the Jesuit and Paulist priests who served in northern Utah for many years, as well as the Holy Cross sisters and Carmelite nuns who continue to serve here.   

Catholics of international renown have appeared in these pages, including Saint Teresa of Calcutta, who visited Holy Trinity Monastery in October 1972; and the Most Rev. Patelisio Finau, Bishop of Tonga, who celebrated Mass at Saint Patrick Catholic Church and came to Salt Lake City the first week of July, 1981, and also discussed with Bishop Weigand plans for developing the Tongan Catholic community in Salt Lake City.

This list is merely representative of the thousands of stories that the Intermountain Catholic has carried for the past 125 years. It is our prayer that, with our readers’ support and the blessing of the Bishop of Salt Lake City, this mission carries on for another century and beyond, as long as the Church in Utah has stories to tell.