Now, Palmquist wears tattoos, a beard, and on some pictures a nose ring. In 2020, he started the “I Am Judas Project” where he tells his story in videos and online posts. A good storyteller, he spoke in an honest and aggression free January 14 video interview with the former homosexual Joseph Sciambra about his life.
Brought up as a New Rite Catholic with Mass and rosary, Palmquist calls his father a "non-practicing Catholic" who went along with the mother's religious fervour. Being the oldest boy, Francis took over the role as “the Catholic man” in the family.
When he was 15/16 years old, the family joined the Society of St. Pius X. Palmquist said he would have broken away from the Church in his youth had he not found the traditional Faith.
Palmquist felt as a part of the SSPX community and considered a priestly vocation despite his homosexual attractions because, he says, there was a shortage of priests and an “overemphasised propaganda” pushing young men to become priests. Now, he calls this a “pressure” which was exercised also on and through the mothers.
After joining the seminary, some fellow students told him that they had entered the seminary not by their own decision but because they were told to do so. The seminary was ideal for Palmquist because he didn't consider marriage an option. Despite what he calls his “uncontrolled sexual desire,” no priest told him to stay out of the seminary.
Palmquist displayed artistic talents and was a good communicator but insecure, never trusting in himself and his opinion. He had inferiority complexes because he saw the big sinner inside. He masturbated and felt "less than everyone else” within a heterosexual environment, “I didn’t feel like I was going to ever be at the same level as anyone else.”
He didn't struggle with homosexuality as he never acted upon it and would “never in a million years have done so." Instead, he put his homosexual attractions “in a nice little box” in his brain. He couldn't stop masturbating and considered himself a horrible sinner. Only after becoming a priest, he realised that his friends and married men were also masturbating.
Nevertheless, God was 100% real to him. He believed the Catholic Faith 100%. He wanted to go to heaven and help other people to go there, “My heart was in religion.”
During his time in seminary, he once fell "in love" with another seminarian who responded to his feelings. They liked talking and caring for each other.
The only physical interaction which happened between them was once grabbing the other's hand and once when they hugged each other after the death of Palmquist’s grandmother, “This was not sexual at all, a very close friendship that started to become barely physical.”
They spoke to their superior about their friendship, then cut off completely from each other, wanting both to become good priests, and even stopped talking to each other.
Palmquist desired to be with this seminarian but suppressed his wish, tried to forget about the matter and even was mean to the other in order to break with him, “It caused so much pain within me.”
He tried to conform and fit into the community, didn’t want to cause problems or to be a problem, and to have peace around him.
Palmquist tried to live a chaste life and to get rid of homosexual thoughts and attractions. Before he was ordained a priest, he accepted that his attractions wouldn't go away considering this as God’s cross requiring from him to "suffer silently.”
He hoped God would give him the grace to endure and persevere, like a “silent martyrdom.” In hindsight he interprets this as “just another way of suppressing everything.” However, he did tell his spiritual director about his problems.
His superiors saw in him an enthusiastic young man and “a pretty good candidate” who was honest, had a lot of qualities and his head on his shoulders.
Palmquist never was aware of any kind of pedophilia nor homosexual underground in the SSPX. Homosexuality “was not promoted nor allowed.”
Depression and Bulimia
After his ordination, Palmquist was assigned to Mexico where he lived with three other priests and where a big crisis started.
During his last five or six months as priest he led a double life experiencing a “back and forth.” He was trying to maintain his priestly obligations but at the same time fell into homosexual actions.
This started in an innocent way with the desire "to connect with people and talk” and led him to having a homosexual relationship with a man outside of the Catholic circle which lasted for a month.
This life made Palmquist depressed, he stopped eating, became bulimic, lost weight and slept all the time, “It destroyed me.”
The other priests noticed that something was wrong with him. “I don’t want to say that they didn’t care,” Palmquist recalls. At this point, he was so far gone that he didn’t even know how to ask for help.
The priests were “understandably annoyed” because to some extent they knew about his problems and saw that Palmquist couldn’t fulfil his duties. Palmquist went "through hell” to come to the point where he is now. He finally decided to leave the priesthood.
It is unusual that Palmquist doesn't present himself as a victim, and doesn't blame PiusX for his choices. Back then, he says, he did what he thought was best, however, “if I could be back I would have made a different decision.”
A few months before he left the priesthood, Palmquist lost his faith, and when he departed he had no "faith in God” anymore. “I don’t believe,” he says now.
Nevertheless, he wants to be "open to the truth" and doesn't want to close the door, “At one moment of my life, I did believe and now I don’t." Palmquist is “happy” with his present homosexual cohabitation. He believes that he has overcome his struggle by calling it okay to be homosexual and by believing that he is “where he should be.”
This statement seems to be contradicted by the fact that he calls his internet presence "I am Judas Project".
