You will not find New Jerusalem, Mexico on any map: State, national, or international. Signs, some faded or peeling, warn visitors they are on sacred ground. “A penitent people for an unrepentant world,” says one. Another warns sinners to honor the Virgin Mary: “Love my mother, unjust sinner, and you will love me. Abhor my mother, and I will abhor you forever.” The town’s sect worships the Virgin Mary but rejects the Roman Catholic church.

New Jerusalem was founded within the Mexican state of Michoacan in 1973 as a refuge for conservative Catholics in reaction to the Second Vatican Council of 1962-1965, when the Roman Catholic Church decided to allow Masses to be celebrated in languages other than Latin and more tolerance was granted to non-Catholics. Although New Jerusalem is not the only apocolyptic colony in the world, it has been said to be much larger and influential than the Branch Davidian Complex in Waco, Texas and Jonestown in Guyana.

Nabor Cárdenas, a parish priest in the town of Puruarán, opposed those changes. He began urging his followers to settle on the site after a local woman, Gabina Sánchez Romero, claimed she saw a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus, warning that the Catholic Church had gone astray and the world would be destroyed before the year 2000. Cárdenas appointed himself Archbishop, adopted the nickname “Papa Nabor” and presided over Masses to more than 8000 followers in a papal hat and robe.

New Jerusalem’s residents originally celebrated Latin Mass three times a day, avoided all contact with outsiders and refused all forms of government services such as medical clinics and schools. New marriages and having children were prohibited and seen as unnecessary and cruel as the end world and intense suffering was drawing near. A house was constructed bearing a papal sealwhich was intended for Pope Paul VI, whom townspeople believe is being held captive in a Vatican dungeon by liberal Catholics. The current pope is the anti-Christ, according to the sect.

“This place is unique in all the world. It is an ark for those who truly believe. The Virgin doesn’t want there to be children because the way the world is now, she doesn’t want them to suffer.”

Although the rules have relaxed somewhat over the years, marriage and childbirth continue to be rare in New Jerusalem. Ball playing, make up, television, radio, alcohol, and women wearing pants continue to be prohibited.

Thirty five years after its founding, the now aged followers have dwindled to less than three thousand and things have began to go terribly wrong in New Jerusalem. Uncertainty, internal conflicts, purges and the deaths of the sect’s spiritual leaders this year have left followers divided and confused.

The end of the world deadlines continue to come and go, creating mistrust and unrest within the sect’s confines. At the same time the state government of Michoacan is trying to establish its control over the town, setting up a public school and sending in riot police to protect dissidents.

The divisions and outside pressures have weakened what was once a Catholic utopia. Their (the Mexican government) idea is to come here and normalize us” residents say.

Last year, the state built an elementary school for the children of the dissidents. Some church members tried to block the road to prevent construction but eventually relented. On the school grounds, girls can run around without their headscarves and boys can play soccer.

In another blow to the church, most of New Jerusalem’s satellite churches across Mexico have sided with the dissidents causing the flow of pilgrims, who sustained the church with donations, to slow to an almost non-existant trickle.

On Feb. 19, Papa Nabor died at age 98. A video taken during his last days shows church leaders trying to get him to sign an affidavit naming Antonio Lara Barajas as his successor. Finally, a priest takes the hand of the semiconscious leader and marks the document with his fingerprint.

Agapito Gómez, the last New Jerusalem Holy Seer, died in September. No new seer has been delivered, but the Michoacan government says it is bracing for another round of conflicts when one does.

The church’s biggest problem, however, is the town’s aging population, births are few and far between and the sect’s young men have left to find work elsewhere.

The remaining followers continue to be convinced they are bowing to the Virgin Mary’s will and that we are living on the verge of the Apocolypse; the dissidents, conflicts, and leaders death only deliver truth to their beliefs. However, even the most faithful find it difficult to deny the turmoil and uncertainty regarding New Jersalem’s future.

Every Wednesday, the entire town gathers at the shrine for a group meal. As she shared a pot of chicken with a visitor, Elinda Goll of Clifton, N.J., recounted the different conflicts and purges she has seen since moving to New Jerusalem in 1985.

“The Virgin weeps for this place,” she said.