[1] The earliest Catholic presence in Utah was the 1776 expedition of Francisco Atanazio Dominguez and Silvestre de Escalante from Santa Fe to California.

In 1873, Archbishop Joseph Alemany of the Archdiocese of San Francisco sent Reverend Lawrence Scanlan to Utah to manage what was then the largest Catholic parish in the country.

Scanlan worked as a circuit rider, visiting the 800 Catholic soldiers, immigrant miners and railroad workers in the Utah Territory.

[10] In 1887, Pope Leo XIII erected the Apostolic Vicariate of Utah and Eastern Nevada, taking its territory from the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

[10] On January 27, 1891, Leo XIII suppressed the vicariate and replaced it with the new Diocese of Salt Lake, keeping Scanlan as bishop.

The second bishop of Salt Lake was Reverend Joseph Glass of the Diocese of Monterey-Los Angeles, named by Pope Benedict XV in 1915.

[15] Some observers said that Glass added the images to confront LDS followers, but others said he simply "wanted to teach Utah Catholics the basic tenets of their faith.

In 1926, Reverend John Mitty from the Archdiocese of New York was appointed the third bishop of Salt Lake City by Pope Pius XI.

After Pius XI in 1932 named Mitty as coadjutor archbishop of San Francisco, the pope appointed Reverend James E. Kearney of New York to replace him in Salt Lake.

The next bishop of Salt Lake City was Monsignor William Weigand of the Diocese of Boise, named by Pope John Paul II in 1980.

Aside from repairing and cleaning the cathedral, the restoration aimed at bringing it into compliance with liturgical changes resulting from the Second Vatican Council in Rome.

To replace Weigand, John Paul II named Monsignor George Niederauer of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles as the next bishop of Salt Lake City in 1994.

Pope Benedict XVI replaced him in Salt Lake City with Auxiliary Bishop John Wester of San Francisco in 2007.

[27] In August 2018, Reverend Andrezej Skrzypiec was charged with patronizing a prostitute, a class-A misdemeanor, after being arrested in a police sting operation in Salt Lake City.

In a 1993 article in the Salt Lake Tribune, an Ogden family told about reporting to the diocese in 1990 that their 14 year old son had been sexually abused by Reverend Ray Devlin, a Jesuit teacher at St. Joseph's High School.

[32] After the publication of the article, the Diocese of Reno-Las Vegas removed Devlin from his parish; he was sent to a Jesuit retirement home and was permanently suspended from ministry.

In 2003, brothers Charles and Louis Colosimo sued the Diocese of Salt Lake City, stating that they had been sexually assaulted as children by Reverend James F. Rapp from 1968 to 1972.

Platt testified that a nun walked in during one assault by Rapp; she threatened to have the boy removed from the care of his foster parents if he told anyone about it.