More than 1,100 people have registered for the third annual Utah Catholic Conference, bringing Catholics from across Utah to the Skaggs Catholic Center in Draper for a day of Mass, bilingual keynote addresses and workshops. The event runs from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to KSL.com.
Bishop Oscar A. Solis will preside at the opening Mass, the Diocese of Salt Lake City says. Registration is expected to remain open through the morning of the conference. The available reports describe the gathering as having grown since it was opened to the public, but they do not provide comparable attendance totals for the earlier editions.
A statewide gathering at a long-established Catholic campus
The conference serves a diocese that extends across the entire state. The Diocese of Salt Lake City says it includes more than 197,954 Catholics, 48 churches, 20 missions, three chapels, seven stations, three Newman Centers, a cathedral and 16 Catholic schools. Those figures provide a broader measure of the community the Draper conference is intended to serve than the registration total alone.
The Skaggs Catholic Center has been part of that institutional footprint for decades. According to the diocese’s history, Sam and Aline Skaggs helped establish the center in 1996 on a 57-acre site in Draper. Draper City records describe the Juan Diego Catholic High School campus as approximately 56.7 acres and identify its current use as a private school.
The campus is also continuing to develop. Draper City records show that on Nov. 4, 2024, the zoning administrator approved a site-plan amendment for a new Skaggs Performing Arts Center and eight classrooms near the campus’s south entrance. The approval documents the site’s planned expansion, but the supplied records do not establish whether that project will affect conference operations or event-day traffic.
Prayer, bilingual formation and a youth track
This year’s theme is “Sacred Heart: Heart of the Mission.” The diocesan announcement describes the program as a day of prayer, fellowship and faith formation, beginning with Mass and continuing with English- and Spanish-language sessions.
Dr. Michael Barber of the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology is scheduled to give the introductory English keynote. Fr. Dempsey Rosales Acosta, executive director of the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University Chicago, will deliver the introductory Spanish keynote and the final bilingual address, according to the diocese.
Students in grades 6 through 12 will have a separate youth session led by Catholic speaker and musician Cooper Ray before rejoining the adult program for the closing keynote. Youth registration is free, while adult registration costs $35. Attendees can park at Juan Diego Catholic High School on the Draper campus, according to the diocesan and KSL.com accounts.
A growing public conference, with limits to the comparison
The conference began as an internal training session for diocesan leaders before being opened to the public three years ago, KSL.com reports. The current registration figure indicates substantial interest in the public event, and organizers say participation has increased each year. However, no earlier registration or attendance totals are supplied in the available sources, so the size of the year-to-year increase cannot be independently calculated from the record provided.
For this edition, the combination of a statewide audience, bilingual programming and a dedicated youth track places the conference within the diocese’s broader work of serving Catholic communities across Utah, while the Draper campus provides the established institutional setting for the one-day gathering.
