Oscar A. Solis
Oscar Azarcon Solis was born on October 13, 1953, in San Jose, Nueva Ecija, Philippines, and studied philosophy at Christ the King Seminary in Tagaytay City and theology at the Pontifical Royal Seminary of the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. He was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Cabanatuan on April 28, 1979, and served there in seminary formation and as vocations director before coming to the United States in 1984. After serving as an associate pastor in the Archdiocese of Newark, he was incardinated into the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux in Louisiana, where he spent fifteen years in parish ministry.
Pope John Paul II named him an auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles on December 11, 2003, and he was consecrated on February 10, 2004, becoming the first Filipino-American bishop ordained in the United States. In Los Angeles he directed ethnic ministry and the Office of Justice and Peace, and from 2009 served as episcopal vicar for the San Pedro pastoral region, while also serving the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Asian and Pacific affairs. Naturalized as an American citizen in 1999, he speaks English, Spanish, and Tagalog.
Pope Francis appointed him the tenth Bishop of Salt Lake City on January 10, 2017, and he was installed at the Cathedral of the Madeleine on March 7, 2017, becoming the first Filipino-American to lead an American diocese. His see covers the whole state of Utah, where Catholics are about a tenth of the population, and his ministry has stressed welcome for immigrants and the Hispanic and language communities of the diocese. His episcopal motto is Fiat voluntas tua, 'Your will be done.'
- 2021-07Granted Fr. Christopher Gray temporary permission to continue celebrating the older form of the Mass, the Traditional Latin Mass, at St. Mary's, Park City, until the bishop had the opportunity to reflect and study the matter further. The parish page itself carries no date; the permission text is absent from the page's 20 June 2021 archived capture and present in its 30 July 2021 capture, so the act is dated July 2021 as a bracket, not a promulgation date. ↗
- 2026-07-02Reported to have restricted the Diocese of Salt Lake City to only two authorized priests celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass, scattering thriving Latin Mass communities. The report is a lay social-media post quoted on an advocacy blog; no diocesan document was found to corroborate it. This report is not relied on for the posture. ↗
No diocesan implementation document for Traditionis custodes from Bishop Solis was found. The one governing act firmly evidenced is a permission recorded on the Park City parish page: the bishop granted Fr. Christopher Gray temporary permission to continue celebrating the older form, the Traditional Latin Mass, at St. Mary's Old Town Chapel until he had reflected further. That permission kept a Sunday Latin Mass alive in Park City, and the parish page still describes the older form as offered there on Sundays.
Against that permission stands a July 2026 report that Solis restricted the whole diocese to two authorized priests celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass, scattering thriving communities. The report rests on a single lay post on social media quoted by an advocacy blog, with no diocesan document found to corroborate it, so it is carried at low confidence and is not relied on for the posture.
A Wednesday 'Latin Mass' is listed at St. Ambrose in Salt Lake City, but the parish page does not name the 1962 Missal, so under the project rules it is not counted as an old-Mass site. On the evidence available the Mass continues on the bishop's temporary permission, which is preserved, not restricted: the July 2026 narrowing report is single-sourced to an advocacy blog quoting a social-media post, with no diocesan corroboration, and under the project rules it cannot carry a posture. If a diocesan document for the restriction surfaces, the verdict revisits to restricted.