Months after the Vatican formally declared the Society of St. Pius X, or SSPX, to be in schism with the Catholic Church, one San Antonio parish has been left at a crossroads.
The Vatican’s declaration has echoed far beyond the hallowed hallways of St. Peter’s Basilica and into San Antonio’s St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Chapel, where the traditionalist group’s only local chapel has long occupied a tenuous place within the archdiocese.
During a Wednesday afternoon devotion, the chapel’s small parking lot was peppered with a handful of vehicles — some bearing bumper-sticker messages like “Patriot” and “Texans for Vaccine Choice.” Despite the church’s size, the chants emanating from behind its heavily bolted double doors cut through the buzzing summer cicadas and passing traffic…