(UT)
Salt Lake Tribune [Salt Lake City UT]
July 31, 2025
By David Noyce and Peggy Fletcher Stack
[Photo above: William Hambleton on the roof at the Pontifical North American College in Rome with St. Peter’s Basilica in the background, circa 1997. He remains disappointed in the diocese’s findings. (William Hambleton)]
After a seven-month independent investigation and the publication of an exclusive Salt Lake Tribune story this past weekend, the leader of Utah’s 300,000 Catholics has deemed as “credible” recent allegations that a Colombian priest sexually abused a teenage boy in the early 1990s while serving in northern Utah.
The case came to light in December 2024, when William Hambleton, former principal of The Madeleine Choir School, wrote to Bishop Oscar Solis and, for the first time, accused the Rev. Heriberto Castrellion Mejia of molesting him when he was 16 years old.
“On behalf of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, I … want to apologize to William Hambleton for the sexual abuse he received from [Father] Heriberto Mejia in the 1990s, and for the many years of suffering and pain you have endured,” Solis said Thursday in news release. “No one should experience such trauma, especially from any member of the clergy. I personally pray and hope for your complete healing, peace and that of your family.”
Hambleton, who met with Solis on Thursday, wrote in an email that he is “grateful” to see the diocese publicly acknowledge his allegations of the “abuse perpetrated by [Father] Mejia,” but he remained “deeply disappointed” that others he argued helped conceal it were not mentioned.
The 51-year-old educator, who earlier had hoped to become a priest, pointed specifically to retired Monsignor Robert Bussen, who served as vicar general at the time, and retired Monsignor J. Terrence Fitzgerald, who later took over that role.
“I have provided Bishop Solis with substantial information suggesting that both Bussen and Fitzgerald played direct roles in concealing Mejia’s misconduct,” Hambleton wrote to The Tribune. “Despite this, Bishop Solis would only confirm that an internal review of these claims has recently begun, offering no further details.”
The diocese has declined to make Bussen and Fitzgerald available for interviews.
Seeking information from other members
Thursday’s release said the diocese has “offered counseling to the victim and family members.”
It also vowed to share its findings with law enforcement, and notify Meija’s home Diocese of Villavicencio, Colombia, along with the two Utah parishes where he ministered, inviting members there to “report any other allegations of sexual abuse.”
Mejia served in Ogden’s St. Joseph Parish and Payson’s St. Andres Parish in 1990-92. The release said he was “permanently removed from ministry in the diocese and left Utah in later 1992.”
The Tribune story noted that the Salt Lake City diocese reported to Payson police in August 2019 that Mejia had “confessed to sexually exploiting two juveniles in 1991” and had since “been deported to Colombia.”
In addition, the diocese, in a 2019 independent review, said that it received an allegation of sexual abuse against Mejia on Aug. 23, 1991, and that on Oct. 28, 1992, he had his “faculties” removed. That meant the priest could no longer perform functions such as celebrate Mass, hear confessions or witness marriages.
Thursday’s release said Mejia also has lost his priestly faculties in his Colombian diocese.
Pursuit of more transparency, accountability
Hambleton said he would like to see the same penalty invoked against Bussen and Fitzgerald.
“These two men collectively held the office of vicar general for 31 years, and their moral and administrative failures during that time contributed to a culture of abuse and sexual misconduct,” he wrote to The Tribune. “Removing their priestly faculties would represent a vital move toward … transparency and accountability.”
The diocese explained that Solis reached his determination about Mejia after an outside investigator interviewed “numerous witnesses” and submitted a report to the diocese’s independent review board.
“A member of the Bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was present,” the release stated, “and consulted with the review board on best practices for conducting the review.”
The panel — which included a pediatrician, family attorney, retired public school director and former criminal defense lawyer — then forwarded its recommendations to the bishop.
Utah’s diocese said all the reports will be sent to the Papal Nuncio in Washington, D.C., and to the metropolitan archbishop of Las Vegas for evaluation.
The diocese “remains committed to ensuring the safety of children, young people and vulnerable adults,” the release concluded, “and providing pastoral outreach to victims and survivors of sexual abuse by clergy.”