The pope wants them out of the church. These traditionalist Catholics in Prince George’s aren’t fazed.

Almost all of the pews were full at the St. Pius X Chapel in Upper Marlboro for a recent Saturday Mass. A few chairs were set up in the entryway in anticipation of an overflow, and a small framed portrait of Pope Leo XIV hung near the entrance.

For many of the parishioners, who total around 300, the pontiff and his predecessors are a source of conflict. As traditionalist Catholics, members of the society reject the church’s efforts to reform and modernize, such as recognizing other religions and conducting worship services in languages other than Latin.

Tension between this traditionalist society and the Vatican has existed for decades, but it bubbled over in July when four bishops with the Society of St. Pius X were consecrated in a meadow in Switzerland without the pope’s approval. Thousands of people, from 70 countries, reportedly attended the ceremony.

Pope Leo responded harshly, excommunicating the new bishops and those who participated in the ceremony. The decree also excommunicated all ordained priests within the society and warned that its members who “adhere formally” risk a similar fate. Hoping to preserve unity in the church, Pope Leo previously pleaded with the traditionalist society not to move forward with the consecrations, calling it a “sin of extreme gravity.”

The society responded with guidance for its members, calling the Vatican’s orders “messy,” and saying that “they seem to lack any juridical effectiveness for anyone except the six bishops involved [in the consecrations].” On July 11, the society filed an appeal that “has the effect of suspending the execution of the decree,” according to the society’s announcement.

The Rev. Samuel Plummer of St. Mary of the Assumption Catholic Church in Upper Marlboro declined to comment on the pope’s order. He referred The Banner to the Archdiocese of Washington’s communication office, which has not responded to phone calls or emails.

“We shouldn’t be rejoicing about being excommunicated because it’s not a good thing anyways,” said Ellen Tull, who attends the St. Pius X Chapel. “But we do understand that it is unjustly done and we still obviously pray for the pope and we still want him to understand that … we are being faithful children to the pope.”

In an interview, Astrud Wheeles was critical of the actions of several popes, including Pope Francis’ acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community.

“Pope Francis was very open to homosexuals, and the church has always taught that it’s a sin,” Wheeles said. “So you can love them, but you can’t embrace the sin.”

The sanction from Pope Leo has, for some, sparked renewed interest in this otherwise obscure branch of Catholicism, according to Rave Bandong, who started attending services at St. Pius X Chapel about five years ago.

Bandong said the congregation is outgrowing its space and is looking to expand. In Upper Marlboro, that starts with the parking lot.

“On Sundays, the whole field [around the chapel] is filled with cars,” Bandong said. “Inside we have chairs in the bookstore area and overflow room where there’s a TV. We’re a growing, small parish.”

Rejecting modernism

The Society of St. Pius X’s divergence from the Vatican existed long before the recent schism. The conflict stems from the society’s rejection of the Vatican’s efforts to modernize.

Most Catholics in the U.S. attend Masses that have been reformed as a result of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, when Roman Catholic leaders from around the world decided to encourage the Catholic Church to cooperate with Christian and non-Christian faiths. Vatican II also allowed Masses recited in the language of the local dioceses, among many other changes.

The Society of St. Pius X rejects these reforms and believes that they brought the Catholic Church “into an unprecedented crisis,” according to its website.

The society’s emphasis on modesty requires that women wear veils and prohibits revealing clothing. The women and girls at the service in Upper Marlboro, for example, wore floral-patterned mantillas of varying colors — some white, others shades of blue or purple. Their dresses and skirts fell below the knee, per the dress code. And at the front of the chapel, the Rev. John Graziano stood at the altar, reciting prayers in Latin, his back to the congregation.

Wheeles, an SSPX member for seven years, said it is the duty of the church, under traditional Catholicism, to convert more people to Catholicism rather than promote interreligious dialogue.

“The Novus Ordo Church, they teach us that all religions are equal and they all lead to God,” Wheeles said, using the Latin phrase meaning “new order” church. “The church has never taught that. There’s only one way, and that’s Jesus through his church.”

In communities elsewhere, members of the Society of St. Pius X, which counts about 35,000 members throughout the country, hold more sway over public life. In the small rural town of St. Marys, Kansas, concerns over revealing clothing contributed to the shuttering of a swimming pool and golf course, the Kansas Reflector reported.

Wheeles said she has become more modest since joining the society. She no longer wears pants and instead exclusively sticks to long dresses or skirts. Her style doesn’t interfere with the work on her 10-acre farm in Anne Arundel County, she said, where she and her family care for livestock, including chickens, goats and horses.

To Vanessa Corcoran, a medieval historian and the newly appointed director of Catholic studies at Georgetown University, the excommunication of society’s leaders was an inevitable result of the very public consecration. She added that the Vatican has made necessary changes to adapt to the modern world.

“They are making an argument that the more modern approaches are rejecting 2,000 years of tradition,” Corcoran said. “And that is not the case. The goal of a more modern church is to represent the world that we live in today, and we see that in so many ways, not just in how Mass is said.”

The Society of St. Pius X has clashed with the pope before — and under strikingly similar circumstances. Pope John Paul II excommunicated the society’s founder, the Rev. Marcel Lefebvre, in 1988 after he consecrated four bishops without approval. Pope Benedict XVI lifted the excommunication in 2009, but two of those bishops were among those excommunicated this summer.

James Vogel, director of communications for the society’s U.S. district, clarified that although the pope declared the group schismatic, they still recognize his authority.

“We’re not separate from the pope and Rome,” he said. “We’re not saying we have our own hierarchy.” The fact that the society is appealing the pope’s order of excommunication to Catholic authorities is an indication of that deference, Vogel added.

According to some canonical experts, the excommunication applies to individual members of the society if they specifically reject the authority of the pope or the Catholic Church. Bandong, for example, does not consider himself excommunicated.

Corcoran clarified that the lay faithful are not excommunicated and incur no penalties for attending SSPX services.

“[The excommunication] is about addressing it from a hierarchical level,” Corcoran said.

The Vatican has provided guidance for the society’s priests to return to the church.

A controversial history

Many in this congregation joined to the society during the COVID-19 pandemic, Bandong said, when other churches closed and parishioners looked to receive sacraments. They would gather in the chapel’s parking lot and listen to Mass through car radios.

To him, the Latin Mass is an important part of unifying Catholics.

“It means that anyone can come here from diverse races, from anywhere, and still be connected to the Mass, to the sacraments,” Bandong said. “You can go to Japan, Mexico, the Philippines and Nigeria, and it’s the same Mass.”

Despite parishioners’ views of the society as a unifying force, past leaders have had a history of promoting division.

Members of the society’s leadership have held infamously antisemitic views, including former bishop and Holocaust denier Richard Williamson, who was expelled by the society in 2012. He had previously denied the existence of Nazi gas chambers and questioned that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

The society’s publishing arm, Angelus Press, still sells “Time Bombs of the Second Vatican Council,” a pamphlet by the Rev. Franz Schmidberger that accuses Jewish people of deicide and claims that immigration from developing countries is “destroying our national identity and, furthermore, the whole of Christian identity,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Vogel referred questions about the society’s history with antisemitism to a page on its website titled “Anti-Semitism is not Catholic,” which says accusations that it teaches or practices antisemitism are false.

“The Catholic Church teaches its members to pray that the Jewish people will recognize Jesus Christ as the Messiah and convert to the Catholic Faith for their salvation,” the webpage says. “This perennial teaching of the Church is motivated by supernatural charity, not hatred.”

Bandong, for his part, drew a distinction between traditionalists’ rejection of the religion as opposed to the people.

“We always pray for conversion of not just Jews, but Muslims and those outside,” he said.

A need for traditionalist bishops

For leaders of the society, the consecrations in Switzerland were a matter of necessity, not a vehicle for recruitment, according to Vogel.

“I can see how it can be interpreted that way,” Vogel said. “That’s not the word I would use.”

There are six Society of St. Pius X bishops worldwide, according to the society’s website, which is putting a strain on its ability to carry out sacraments, including ordination of priests. Most of the society’s priests must travel to preside over services every weekend, Vogel said.

Father Graziano, for example, is based in Chicago and flies to Maryland every week. He declined to speak with The Banner in an official capacity.

Vogel said as the society has grown over the past decade, the needs of its members have also increased. At one point, they were down to just two bishops, he said.

“It became unwieldy for them to travel all over the world,” Vogel said. “So it all ties into sacramental necessity of the faithful. ... It’s more a question of responding to the souls who request a need for certain spiritual goods.”