Mark Pivarunas

Pivarunas was born to his father, Walter Pivarunas, and an ethnic Italian mother in Chicago, Illinois. He has three brothers and a sister. He entered the religious life in September 1974, entering the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen and taking the religious name Brother Mary Tarcisius. He made his final profession on September 12, 1980, at CMRI's headquarters at Mount Saint Michael in Spokane, Washington. In May 1984, Pivarunas was among the clergy who removed Bishop Francis Schuckardt, founder of the CMRI, under controversial circumstances. On April 23, 1985, after some time without a clear leader, Pivarunas and the clergy met with Bishop George Musey, who, like his consecrator, the Mexican sedevacantist Bishop Moisés Carmona, was an independent, Thuc line bishop. Bishop Musey agreed to advance Pivarunas and two others to the priesthood on June 27, 1985. Bishop Musey's connections with Mount Saint Michael were limited after that.

The priests concluded that, while it was important to dispense the Mass and sacraments, the condition of sedevacantism (Sede vacante, the empty papal see) in the Roman Catholic Church resulted in a vacuum of canonical ecclesiastical authority. A coalition of 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 CMRI clergy made contact with Bishop Moisés Carmona, who offered to elevate Pivarunas to the episcopate, without the normally required papal mandate. On September 24, 1991, Father Pivarunas was consecrated a bishop by Carmona at Mount Saint Michael.

On November 30, 1993, Bishop Pivarunas conferred episcopal consecration upon Father Daniel Dolan in Cincinnati, Ohio, and on May 11, 1999, he also consecrated Martin Davila for the Sociedad Sacerdotal Trento to succeed Moisés Carmona.

Bishop Pivarunas now resides in Omaha, Nebraska, serving as Superior General of CMRI and as rector of the congregation's Mater Dei Seminary there.

• Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen
• Traditional Catholic Sermons