The Vatican condemns hundreds of thousands of SSPX followers.

The SSPX was founded in 1970 during the so-called Second Vatican Council, in opposition to the modernization of the Roman Catholic Church in the 1960s. The association is thought to have around 600,000 worshipers worldwide.

Reacting to the Vatican’s decision, Rita Reed, an SSPX devotee from Jersey in the Channel Islands, said: “It really makes me feel very strong.

“Yesterday before the consecration, I said to my husband, ‘You know what? Even if they kick us out, go ahead and bring him, it won’t change one bit.'”

The Society rejects changes to the celebration of Mass – for example, the service is still held in Latin rather than the vernacular, and priests face the altar rather than the congregation.

In the SSPX Mass, the bread of communion must be given directly by the priest into the mouths of the kneeling worshipers, rather the parishioners themselves cannot hold it while standing.

Women in the group cover their heads for services and SSPX followers are generally socially conservative.

The SSPX opposes the position of the modern Catholic Church on further dialogue with other Christian denominations and other faiths.

For Rita, 76, SSPX ceremonies are more “deep” as she feels “the real presence of Jesus”.

She says there’s no comparison to the regular Catholic Mass, which she describes as “very weak and wishy-washy.”

The retired B&B owner had been attending modern Catholic services as well as SSPX, but complained that he was no longer taught the traditional social values ​​of the Mass – no premarital sex.

“I think many young people are going now New order (The standard liturgy) Think, ‘Oh, it’s okay, it’s okay, we can do these things.’

The Society’s main presence is in the US and France but it holds Mass in 26 locations around the UK, from Lerwick in Shetland to Devon, with its main center in Wimbledon, south London.

In the year At one point in the 1980s, bishops of the association were excommunicated for disobedience to Rome, but that decision was later reversed.

There have been recent efforts to reconcile with the SSPX, but the Vatican’s response to this week’s events has been more forceful and harsher than predicted.

Wednesday’s event in Geneva was widely expected to lead to the expulsion of bishops involved in the case.

But the expulsion of all the faithful who remained part of the SSPX came as a surprise to many, as the traditional group was now far from the center of power of the Roman Catholic Church.

Excommunication is one of the severest punishments given by the Church, excommunicating the guilty and excluding them from Catholic life.

This means that a baptized follower is “out of communion” with the Church – meaning they cannot receive sacraments such as confession or marriage in the Roman Catholic Church.

The ministers of the Congregation of St. Pius X illegally administer the sacraments; But the sacraments of penance they perform and the marriages they witness are worthless.

This means that members of the SSPX must now remain members of the Catholic Church in order to remain members of a group in “schism” or abandon what they believe to be right.

But it is clear that many SSPX members believe that the Vatican has strayed from true doctrine, not them.