As at a typical Sunday Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes in Bethesda, prayers were given for the living and the dead, the infirm and the Church.

But on this day, the reader ended the prayer of the faithful with some unusual words:

“We pray for the intention of Donald J. Trump, for whom this Mass is being offered today,” a parishioner remembered hearing at the late-summer gathering.

The churchgoer, who wished to remain anonymous to protect his relationship with the parish, couldn’t believe his ears.

“That’s something you don’t ask a congregation when it’s naturally divided,” he said. “You’re forcing 20-30-40 percent of the people to pray for the intentions of Donald Trump. You’re putting them in a corner.”

In its do’s and don’ts for election season, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops tells parishes to avoid taking “any action that reasonably could be construed as endorsement or opposition.” But in 2024, not even Democratic Maryland can escape its divisions in the pews, putting a spotlight on the political history of the church. Pope Francis told America’s Catholics earlier this year to vote for the “lesser evil,” whether it be “the one who kicks out migrants” or “the one who kills babies.” Polls show a majority of white Catholics support Trump, who has courted them as he has white evangelicals. In September, the Trump campaign announced a Catholics for Trump coalition after claiming Democrats are “after the Catholics.”

Though a Mass for Trump is unlikely to move the needle, it “is like having the priest endorse Trump from the altar,” said Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and columnist for Religion News Service. “That’s when you are prostituting religion for politics.”

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington specified: “We as a church don’t pray for any particular politicians only. We pray for all of our nation’s leaders.”

The Rev. Rob Walsh told The Banner he did not preside over Mass on Aug. 4 but confirmed it took place, as does a church bulletin.

Announcing this Mass intention for Donald Trump was “a mistake” that won’t happen again, he said, “because my intention is not to politicize the Mass.”

As in many Catholic churches, a churchgoer can request a Mass to be offered for the intention of a person, often a sick or deceased relative. They can donate $10, but this is not required. Then it is up to the parish to approve and announce the intention.

“So somebody may have requested that. I don’t know who it was, and I don’t know what their intention was, but I suppose they just wanted to pray for Donald Trump,” Walsh explained.

“If it happens again in the future, I may pray for that person, but it won’t be announced, because I don’t want to politicize it, but I’ll pray for anyone,” he explained, just not their intentions.

But that distinction may be lost on parishioners.

“It’s disturbing,” said Ted Dunkelberger, a parishioner of St. Ann’s in Northwest Washington who came to Lourdes for a Sunday Mass. “Going to church should be about love and service, not blessing a man like Donald Trump who is a known liar, deceitful, and antithetical to Christian values.”

A Democrat, Dunkelberger said he’s encountered politics bleeding into the pews in other Catholic churches in the Washington metro area.

It’s one thing to be pro-life and say it in church, he said. “It’s a whole other thing to say that we endorse, support, and bless Donald J. Trump.”

“If someone prayed for Kamala Harris in there, there would be an uproar,” said a Republican parishioner who supports Trump and wished to be anonymous to speak freely.

Though Catholic barons founded Maryland as an English colony of religious freedom, the waves of poor European Catholic immigrants in the 19th and early 20th centuries ignited intense discrimination and violence. In the 1890s alone, more than 20 Italians were lynched.

So Catholics, by and large, tried to stay out of politics.

But some Catholics got political in the 1930s, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt quoted papal encyclicals to court the Catholic vote, explained Catholic University historian Maria Mazzenga.

A Detroit priest named Father Coughlin used his popular radio show to urge people to vote for Roosevelt during the Great Depression, coining the phrase “Roosevelt or Ruin,” Mazzenga said. When Coughlin later turned against Roosevelt, the president enlisted the help of Catholic bishops to muzzle him.

Though these flareups are rare, Catholics started to get more politically active in the 1970s to work with Evangelical Protestants to oppose Roe v. Wade and abortion rights, Mazzenga said.

This year, Maryland voters will decide in November whether to make abortion a constitutional right. The Maryland Catholic Conference is urging them to vote no.

The goal of Catholics for Catholics, a conservative lobbying organization endorsed by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, is to offer Masses for Trump en masse: 2,024 by Election Day to be exact. Since Trump’s birthday on June 14, there have been 1,069 Mass intentions so far, according to the group’s website, which directs you to “become a prayer warrior” and donate $10 for a Mass card for Trump.

“Catholics are the last remaining barriers to the takeover of our country. The work of Catholics for Catholics is vital,” Bannon was quoted saying before the page was hastily scrubbed. He is serving four months in a federal prison for defying a congressional investigation into his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In Bethesda, the previous pastor of Lourdes chided a Catholic prep school in Washington for recognizing same-sex unions. He also changed the parish sign to praise police during the Black Lives Matter protests over police brutality in the summer of 2020. Bethesda residents petitioned the parish to take it down.

“Young people are leaving in droves because they are mad at the political involvement of the churches,” Reese said, notably young women, whose exodus now outnumbers men for the first time.

Nationally, the Catholic population in the U.S. has decreased slightly from 24% in 2007 to 20% in 2023. In Baltimore, the nation’s oldest Catholic diocese, parishes are losing parishioners and closing. A May consolidation plan will reduce Baltimore’s 61 Catholic parishes down to 23.

Elizabeth Conway thinks that while the Mass for Trump could turn people off, it might also be beneficial. “Perhaps it’s good for people to be confronted by people who don’t necessarily agree with them,” she said.

The 26-year-old Rockville native came to Lourdes in 2020 after rediscovering her faith in college.

“Because we’re Beltway insiders, we get so wrapped up in the politics and the elections and the candidates and whether your neighbor agrees with you or not that we lose sight of what’s really more important,” she said. “Maybe the only way we come through this is by looking at these divisions, and talking about them.”

Cynthia Allen has been with Lourdes since fifth grade and sent her kids to the Catholic school next door.

“It was the first time I ever heard something like that in church,” she said about the Mass for Trump.

“Maybe it’s making him a better person,” Allen offered. “He is a man that needs help.”