A former SSPX priest embraces life as a gay man and tattoo artist

EXTON, Pa. (RNS) — In March 2024, Francis Palmquist bent over his right calf and carefully tattooed the tear rolling down Mary’s cheek as depicted in the famous image. It was six years after he left Catholic priesthood and the ultra-traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.

“Happy Mary doesn’t resonate with me, but Mary in front of the cross feeling so much sorrow — a sword going through her heart — that’s where I relate,” Palmquist said. “Our Lady of Sorrows” was the first piece he tattooed on himself in the realism style, which has quickly become his signature.

In some traditionalist circles, Palmquist’s story — from SSPX priest to his two-year stint on YouTube discussing the faith and being gay — is already infamous. Unlike in more mainstream branches of Catholicism, there aren’t other former members of the society, which rejects many Second Vatican Council reforms, who are talking on the internet about coming out. But in the last four years, Palmquist’s online presence has reflected his new vocation: a dedication to his clients and tattooing craft through his business, St. Francis Tattoo .

In March 2024, Francis Palmquist bent over his right calf and carefully tattooed the tear rolling down Mary’s cheek as depicted in the famous image. It was six years after he left Catholic priesthood and the ultra-traditionalist Society of St. Pius X.

“Happy Mary doesn’t resonate with me, but Mary in front of the cross feeling so much sorrow — a sword going through her heart — that’s where I relate,” Palmquist said. “Our Lady of Sorrows” was the first piece he tattooed on himself in the realism style, which has quickly become his signature.

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In some traditionalist circles, Palmquist’s story — from SSPX priest to his two-year stint on YouTube discussing the faith and being gay — is already infamous. Unlike in more mainstream branches of Catholicism, there aren’t other former members of the society, which rejects many Second Vatican Council reforms, who are talking on the internet about coming out. But in the last four years, Palmquist’s online presence has reflected his new vocation: a dedication to his clients and tattooing craft through his business, St. Francis Tattoo .

“He’s a prophet for authenticity,” said C., a fan who asked to be identified by an initial only to maintain relationships with his family. A former older Latin Mass attendee, C. said the vulnerability Palmquist shares, still without attacking the church, helped him to be more authentic and less ideologically defensive.

The journey to this point — where Palmquist, 37, is fully “being myself,” living with his partner and throwing himself into his art — has not been easy, he recalled to RNS during an August interview at the tattoo studio in Exton, Pennsylvania where he works. Leaving the priesthood in 2017 was so traumatic that his brain “shut off religion,” he said. He’s not sure he’d remember the steps of the Mass. But he has also spent his years since then inscribing symbols from his former life all over his body — an owl carrying the Sacred Heart of Jesus on his chest, the Immaculate Heart of Mary just below it and Mary Magdalene above the devil on his right arm. He has asked himself, “Why the heck am I getting all these religious tattoos?”

Growing up in Belmont, North Carolina, a Charlotte suburb, Palmquist doesn’t remember being interested in religion when his family attended the most common Catholic liturgy, known to traditionalists as the Novus Ordo. But after his mother decided the family would attend an SSPX chapel when he was a preteen, he threw himself in head first.

“ There was almost like this silent competition for who could be holier,” said Ryan Arcia, a lifelong friend whose family switched to the same SSPX parish around the same time.

The SSPX is known for celebrating the older Latin Mass, a liturgy used before the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The reforms that the SSPX rejects include celebrating Mass in local languages and embracing dialogue with other religions. After ordaining bishops in July without the pope’s approval, the group and the lay Catholics who formally participate in it were excommunicated.

he SSPX, which says there are approximately 25,000 lay people attending its chapels in the U.S., represents just a fraction of the Catholics in the U.S. who attend the older Latin Mass.

But Palmquist’s priest went beyond typical early 2000s SSPX traditionalism. He recommended parishioners get rid of their televisions and rock-and-roll albums, Arcia remembers. Palmquist said the priest reinforced a version of masculinity that felt inaccessible.

Arcia said he never wondered whether Palmquist might be gay — even when he was “sticking up” for his friend when other boys called him feminine. “That’s the very last thing you think about your best friend” in that world, Arcia said.

But Palmquist said he always felt a “natural attraction” to men. Confused, he found “peace” and “order” at Mass and looked for every opportunity to be in the church. Like many SSPX young men, he began to consider becoming a priest.

Massimo Introvigne, a sociologist at the Center for Studies on New Religions based in Italy, who interviewed SSPX founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, said Lefebvre’s goal was to “freeze the priesthood as it was in the 1950s,” placing heightened importance on the role.

Palmquist referred to his seven years in a Winona, Minnesota, seminary as “militaristic.” He thought he was “getting over” his attraction to men, but he now recognizes that was “a facade.” Looking back, he believes his spiritual director, with whom he was “100% open,” should have cautioned him against getting ordained.

But instead, in June 2016, he laid face down outside the seminary chapel and was ordained. The back of Palmquist’s ordination card reads, “I thirst,” chosen because of his intense spirituality.

Instead of joining his classmates in English-language ministries, he moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, to hear confessions, give homilies and teach philosophy in Spanish — a language he barely knew.

"Back then, I just bulldozed through my limitations, and I couldn’t do enough. I couldn’t be enough,” Palmquist said. “Once you’re known for being that person who goes the extra mile, then that’s the expectation, especially for yourself.”

Soon, his situation began spiraling out of control, he said. His superiors seemed to dislike him because he was American, and he struggled to connect with the other priests. Missing community, he downloaded an anonymous chat app and connected with other gay men.

Many of the conversations were “normal,” Palmquist remembers, “ but it was the first time I heard someone say, like, ‘You’re really handsome.’”

“ This was like the beginning of my little double life,” he said.

He struggled with sleep and disordered eating, going from 180 to 140 pounds. He began drinking as his mental health worsened. “It got to the point where I looked in the mirror and it was like I was a shell of who I was before,” he said.

Palmquist said his seminary rector suggested he pray more. But he also told Palmquist, “ I don’t think you were ever supposed to be a priest.” Eventually Palmquist asked his Mexican superiors for a therapist — help that Palmquist said never arrived. (The director of communications for the SSPX District of the USA did not respond to a request for comment.)

Rather, in December 2017, his superior told Palmquist he’d be going to a house in Kansas City known to take problem priests. He contacted a friend he met at a gay bar, “freaking out,” he recalled. The next night, hours before he was supposed to leave for Kansas City, he met that friend and disappeared in the middle of the night.

Arcia, who also left SSPX, learned about Palmquist’s exit from his mother. “ Francis was kind of a celebrity within the SSPX — a lot of people knew who he was — so when he left, it was a bigger thing than it needed to be,” Arcia said.

Palmquist spent the next seven years in Mexico, trying to find financial stability, reinventing himself and going to therapy. A month after he left the priesthood, he got his first tattoo — the owl carrying a Sacred Heart across his chest. It was a nod to the idea that owls “see the clearest in the dark.” In that dark period of his life, he felt he could see clearly, but he wanted to move forward with “the heart” of his past, he said.

“ I’m going to live this new life, but as close to being a Catholic as possible,” he said of his mindset. He added, these “were ideas that I had meditated hours on, that I had dissected, that I had attacked and tried to refute."

Through his first gay relationship, Palmquist met a tattoo artist and realized it was a career in which he could incorporate his longtime love of art. He also began to write a book about his experience leaving the priesthood.

His therapist suggested he try making YouTube videos before releasing the book to test out dealing with public exposure, creating his channel, “ I am Judas Project, ” in 2020. Palmquist said he wanted to prevent others in similar situations from “feeling so alone.”

During his two years on YouTube, he felt ready to move back to the U.S. and started to put down roots in Philadelphia. And as his focus shifted toward tattooing, Palmquist gave up the channel.

His business, St. Francis Tattoo, is a nod to his religious past. “I definitely don’t think I’m a saint,” he said, laughing. But he works below a San Damiano crucifix, the image of Christ that spoke to St. Francis and eventually led him to renounce worldly goods to serve the church.

"The Franciscans in general, their whole lives were given to the poor — just complete self-dedication for others. And that’s how I want to live my life,” Palmquist said.

Now, he channels his impulse for service into his work with tattoo clients, he said. Doing excellent work isn’t enough — Palmquist finds himself checking in on and caring for them, “kind of being a priest to them in a sense.”

Lindsay Healey, a client, said her experience working with Palmquist has been different from other artists she has worked with. For her first tattoo with him, Palmquist is creating an arm sleeve that brings the figures on playing cards to life.

“ I’m actually a pretty shy person, but he made me feel really comfortable, and through the sessions, he’s constantly checking on me” to make sure she can tolerate the pain, Healey said. “He’s a great artist, but honestly, he is an even better friend.”

Palmquist hopes to have the opportunity to mentor other tattoo artists. “ Art has always been about passing down the knowledge that was given to you,” he said. “ There’s so much good with what we’ve been given from the past.”

His skepticism of modernity impacts his feelings about LGBTQ+ Catholic Masses. He said he attended a few and felt like he was being pandered to.

At seminary, Palmquist said he learned Catholic doctrine cannot change without becoming “unrecognizable.” Of proponents of LGBTQ-affirming Catholicism, Palmquist asked, “ Are they doing it because it’s the truth, or are they doing it because it’s just the modern thing now?”

Still, Palmquist said he feels at peace and sees his gay relationships as confirmation he made the right decision to leave the priesthood. “I think I am where I should be,” he said.

And, right now, he doesn’t feel the need to work out the conflict between the doctrine of his former faith and his current life. “I’m not at my destination yet,” he said. “I never want to come across like I’m some beacon of whatever. It’s just a very human experience.”