Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen

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The Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen (CMRI) (Latin: Congregatio Mariae Reginae Immaculatae) is a traditional Catholic religious community. The primary mission of the Congregation is to promote its interpretation of the message of Our Lady of Fatima. It is has also gone by the names of Tridentine Latin Rite Church, Fatima Crusaders, Oblates of Mary Immaculate Queen of the Universe.

The congregation was formed in 1967 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho by a group of laymen and women of the Blue Army led by Francis Schuckardt. In 1969, with the approval of Bishop Sylvester Treinen, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Boise, Idaho, Shuckardt formed the group into a religious congregation of nuns, brothers.

With the implementation of the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, Schuckhardt and his group came to the conclusion that Pope Paul VI was not a valid pope and therefore sought services from priests who shared his theological position. In the early 1970s Schuckhardt received ordination as a priest and consecration as a bishop from Daniel Brown, an Old Catholic bishop who apparently converted to Schuckhardt's brand of Roman Catholicism.

In the late 1970s the congregation acquired the old Jesuit scholasticate Mount Saint Michael in Spokane, Washington, making it the headquarters of operations.

In 1984 a series of stories in the secular press accused Schuckardt of alleged drug abuse and gross personal immorality, charges which rocked the Mount St. Michael community. In June 1984 some priests confronted him with the accusations. After delays in addressing the issue, Schuckardt fled with a small number of religious and lay people.

In autumn of 1984 the priests sought out a bishop to ordain for the CMRI and found Bishop George Musey of Galveston, Texas, whose episcopal lineage can be traced back to Archbishop Ngô Ðình Thuc Pierre Martin. Musey had been ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1952. On 23 April 1985, before Bishop Musey, three of the four remaining priests "formally and publicly" took an "Abjuration of Error and Profession of Faith ad cautelam" in case through their previous actions they had incurred any ecclesiastical censures. Bishop Musey then conditionally re-ordained them.

In 1986, the Congregation held its first General Chapter establishing a formal set of Rules and Constitutions. In the same year, the Rule was approved by Bishop Robert F. McKenna, O.P., whose episcopal lineage can also be traced to Archbishop Thuc.

In 1989, the Reverend Mark Pivarunas was elected Superior General of the Congregation. Father Pivarunas was consecrated bishop in 1991 by Bishop Moises Carmona, also of the Thuc lineiage.

Pivarunas currently serves as Superior General and the Reverend Mother Marie de Lourdes is serving as the current Mother General of the sisters. The Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen serves 29 churches and chapels in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. They also operate a seminary in Omaha, Nebraska, while the Sisters' motherhouse is located in Spokane, Washington.

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