Mark Pivarunas
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Mark Anthony Pivarunas (born October 31, 1958), born in Chicago, Illinois, is a Traditionalist Catholic bishop who holds that the papacy is vacant, a position he adopted from the controversial Bishop Francis Schuckardt.
Mark Pivarunas entered the religious life in September 1974 entering the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen taking the religious name Brother Mary Tarcisius. He made his final profession into the hands of Bishop Francis Schuckardt, as his Superior General, on September 12, 1980, at the Congregation's headquarters, Mount Saint Michael, Washington.
During the years of 1980 and 1984, Pivarunas participated in several training sessions for a para-military type organization called St. Konrad's Brigade. The brigadiers were trained by Pivarunas and a Fr. Denis Chicoine to drill, practice martial arts, and to use various kinds of weaponry. Testimony in a California Court in 1988 revealed that members of Richard Butler's Aryan Nations Church had been present at the Mount Saint Michael compound for at least one of these boot camps.
These extremist activities resulted in Pivarunas' being held back from ordination to the priesthood by Bishop Schuckardt. Consquently Pivarunas joined forces with several other disgruntled clergy in May of 1984 in overthrowing the Bishop and Religious Superior through a well-orchestrated campaign of character assasination.
The freelance clergy who took over Mount Saint Michael after the deposition of Bishop Francis Schuckardt sought for almost a year for another figurehead of authority. Finally, on April 23, 1985, Pivarunas and the other insubordinate clergy met with Bishop George Musey (a "bishop at large" with no ties to Rome), who forthwith agreed to advance Pivarunas and two other clerics to the priesthood on June 27, 1985
Their favorable reception towards Bishop Musey cooled considerably following the ordination ceremonies, as he attempted to reign in the independent ways of his new priests, and within a few months he was also ejected from Mount Saint Michael by the resident clergy, who called in the assistance of the Spokane County Sheriff's Department.
It was about this time that the clergy at Mount St. Michael determined that episcopal authority was not really necessary to the fulfillment of their ministerial functions. A complex theological rationale led to the priests' conclusion that, while it was important to dispense the Mass and Sacraments, the condition of sedevantism in the church resulted in a vacuum of canonical authority. Respecting internal discipline, however, the priests elected the 30 year old Pivarunas to the post of Superior General of the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen in August 1989.
In 1991, the clergy at Mount Saint Michael made contact with yet another "bishop at large", the Mexican Moises Carmona, who offered to elevate Pivarunas to the episcopate. On September 24, 1991, Brother Pivarunas was consecrated bishop by Bishop Moises Carmona at Mount Saint Michael in Spokane, Washington. Other Bishops belonging to Carmona's loose confederation of "bishops at large" (particularly Oliver Orovec, et al.)subsequently published statements questioning whether the elderly Carmona was mentally competent to validly perform Pivarunas' consecration.
On November 30, 1993, Bishop Pivarunas consecrated bishop the Reverend Daniel Dolan in Cincinnati, Ohio, continuing the legacy of bishops at large, who answer to no Church authority in any respect.
Bishop Pivarunas now resides in Omaha, Nebraska serving as Superior General of the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen and as rector of the Congregation's seminary there.