Five years ago, a
major change came to the lives of Sister
Mary Eucharista, a member of the Religious Congregation of Mary
Immaculate Queen (CMRI), and 14 of her fellow sisters living at Mount St.
Michael (“the Mount”) in Spokane, Washington.
Bishop Mark Pivarunas, the Superior General of the CMRI organization,
told the sisters they had to leave the community if they did not stop promoting
“heterodox” views among the other 35 sisters.
But their
“heresy” was not the kind American Catholics have seen in some communities of nuns
in recent generations.
Sister Mary Eucharista and her sisters were asked to
leave because they had come to believe that Pope Benedict XVI was indeed the
legitimate head of the Roman Catholic Church.
The CMRIs were
initially founded in 1967 with approval of Church authorities, but went on to
embrace sedevacantism, separating
themselves from the Church.
As sedevacantists, they do not accept the
legitimacy of any of the popes since the close of the Second Vatican Council.
“I feel a deep
love and compassion for my former community,” Sister Mary Eucharista, 52, says
today. “They will always be special to me. But while I understand them, I can
never go back unless they return to full communion with the Church.”
Guitars and bongo
drums
Sister Mary
Eucharista was born in Southern California into a pious Catholic family. They
prayed the Rosary together and often went to daily Mass. But the close of
Vatican II brought major changes to her parish, St. John the Baptist in Costa
Mesa.
Guitars and bongo drums suddenly appeared at Mass, altar rails and
statues were removed, and catechism teachers began publically denying Catholic
teachings such as the existence of purgatory and the Assumption of Mary.
One
day, her mother noticed a holy water font was empty. She told a parish priest
and he responded, “Fill it up with water and bless it yourself.”
In 1969, Sister
Mary Eucharista’s parents learned of a new traditional Catholic school being
founded in Coeur d’Alene, a northern Idaho resort area that has long been a
draw for traditionalist Catholics.
Its head was the charismatic Francis Schuckardt (1937-2006), who
was originally part of the Blue Army apostolate committed to spreading the
message of Our Lady of Fatima.
Schuckardt founded the CMRIs as a community of
priests, nuns, and religious brothers. The CMRIs would eventually make their
headquarters at Mount St. Michael, a former Jesuit seminary in Spokane they had
purchased. Sister Mary Eucharista taught at Mount St. Michael for 23 years.
The CMRIs object
to the changes in the Catholic Church which occurred after the Second Vatican Council,
particularly in the areas of ecumenism, religious liberty, and collegiality
among bishops. They also hold to the celebration of the sacraments according to
the pre-Vatican II forms, most notably the old Latin Mass.
Unlike other
traditionalist groups—including the better-known Society of St. Pius X—the CMRIs
are also proponents of sedevacantism, the claim that the papal see is vacant (sede
vacante—“empty seat”).
Thus
they believe that Pope Benedict XVI—like John Paul II, John Paul I, Paul VI, and
possibly John XXIII before him—is not really the pope. They argue that
these popes espouse modernist doctrines over traditional Catholic teachings,
and for this reason cannot be legitimate popes.
(Bishop Pivarunas was
contacted for comment on this story, including discussion of his sedvacantist
beliefs, but did not respond by press time. His defense of sedvacantism and
other positions of the CMRI community can be read at the community’s
website.)
Mother Kathryn Joseph left the CMRIs
along with Sister Mary Eucharista. “We came to believe the new Mass and
sacraments were invalid, so we thought, how could Paul VI be the true pope? He
must be an invalid pope, too,” she explained.
Cult-like
practices
Sister Mary
Eucharista’s family re-located to northern Idaho and joined Schuckardt’s
community. While many radical changes were occurring in the Church in the
outside world, her family was content with the celebration of the old Latin
Mass, educating children with the Baltimore Catechism, and religious men and
women in traditional habits.
However, Sister recalled, “The traditional
environment kept us from being concerned about the cult-like practices of the
group.”
For example, women
were required to wear long dresses and keep their heads covered; parishioners
were encouraged to pray with arms outstretched and walk backwards out of church
(so as not to turn their backs on the Blessed Sacrament); reading newspapers
and watching TV were discouraged; smoking was considered a mortal sin; and the
importance of a religious vocation was emphasized to the point of denigrating marriage.
Mother Kathryn
Joseph added, “It seemed like an oasis of Catholic culture. We never saw
ourselves as separate from the Catholic Church. In fact, we thought the
Catholic Church left us. We didn’t realize that we were becoming our own
Magisterium.”
Schuckardt led
the community until 1984. He was ordained a priest and then a bishop by a
bishop of the schismatic Old Catholic Church, giving him valid but illicit
orders.
However, Schuckardt was publicly accused by a fellow sedevacantist
clergyman, Denis Chicoine, of being involved in homosexual relationships with
underage associates, as well as of irresponsible fiscal management and drug
abuse. Schuckardt denied the charges but left the community immediately.
Today, the CMRIs
are led by Bishop Pivarunas, who was also ordained a priest and bishop illicitly.
He lives at a CMRI seminary in Omaha, and oversees dozens of churches in the US,
Canada, and New Zealand.
Entering the CMRI
convent
Sister Mary
Eucharista entered the CMRI convent at age 21. Her older sister was a CMRI
nun, and she thought she might have a vocation as well.
“I wanted to be a
journalist, I wanted to raise horses and I wanted to get married. But, in the
end, I thought God was calling me to religious life,” she said.
She became a
teacher in the Mount St. Mary’s school, St. Michael’s Academy, teaching a
variety of subjects, including theology. She was also involved in a variety of
CMRI apostolates. Some of the more extreme practices of the CMRI community
subsided after Schuckardt’s abrupt departure, and Sister was pleased.
“I was
absolutely blissful,” she said. “The kids that I taught always told me, ‘Sister,
you’re always so happy.’ I told them, ‘Happiness is a choice, and I choose to
bloom where I’m planted.’”
But Sister began
having doubts about sedevacantism as early as 1993. She prayed for guidance,
and increasingly began talking with Catholics in the “mainstream” Church.
Mother Kathryn
Joseph’s sedevacantist views began to soften in 2000. She took part in a
pilgrimage to Rome, and saw rank-and-file Catholics going to confession and
praying the Rosary, and was struck by their reverence in church.
She even did
the unthinkable: participated in a Holy Hour devotion in an adoration chapel in
St. Peter’s Basilica. (Because she did not believe in the validity of the
new Mass or sacraments, her “official” position was that those in the Vatican
chapel “were worshipping a piece of bread.”)
Mother Kathryn
Joseph left Rome hopeful about a possible reconciliation with Church
authorities.
Another
development that had a powerful effect on the CMRI community was the coming of
EWTN Global Catholic Radio to Spokane around 2005.
The CMRIs heard
orthodox Catholicism brought to them through the airwaves daily.
Some of the
sisters objected and insisted the radio be turned off, others were confused,
and some were pleased to discover that orthodoxy existed outside their
community.
A visit from nuns
belong to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity also made an impact.
“We were
taken with them,” Sister Mary Eucharista said. “They modeled religious life to
us in a positive way.”
The Missionaries of Charity, of course, were considered
by the CMRIs to be part of a false church. Local clergy in union with Rome were
good models for the sisters of the “mainstream” Church as well.
Changes come for
the CMRIs
By 2005, things came
to a head in the CMRI community. Sister Mary Eucharista had spent much time in
prayer and conversation with Catholics in communion with the Church,
culminating with her acceptance of Pope Benedict XVI upon his election.
She has vivid
memories of the day the new Holy Father was announced to the world. As the
media broadcast images of Benedict, she was excited and moved to tears. She
thought, “I can’t believe it, he’s the pope.”
Sister Mary
Eucharista spoke of her views with her fellow sisters, but was ordered by her
mother superior to remain silent. That didn’t sit well with her: “I can’t speak
openly in my own house?” she thought.
She was also no
longer allowed to teach theology.
For Mother
Kathryn Joseph, it was a conversation she had with her brother, Mike Duddy, that changed her mind
about the Church. He was a former seminarian who taught philosophy at St.
Michael’s Academy. He had made the journey from sedevacantist to full communion
with the Church, but kept quiet about his views so he could continue teaching. (He
was later fired anyway.)
Mother Kathryn
Joseph sat down with him one day to have it out on the sedevacantism issue. “I
had an epiphany in one sitting,” she recalled. “I realized that I had been
wrong for 35 years. But I was happy to have been proven wrong.”
Duddy doesn’t
recall the particular conversation that converted his sister, so much as a
series of conversations he had with both her and members of her community. He
had been a seminarian for both the Los Angeles and San Francisco archdioceses, had
flirted with sedevacantism and then, after study, rejected it.
To this day, he
has maintained his dedication to traditional Catholicism, practiced under the
proper authorities of the Church.
He moved to the
Spokane area to be closer to family, and put two of his children into St.
Michael’s Academy. He didn’t approve of the Mount’s sedvacantism, but since it
was not taught in the classroom, he decided it would not have an adverse effect
on his children.
Additionally, the Mount’s pastor, Father Casimir Puskorius,
had been a family friend since childhood. In fact, Father Puskorius asked Duddy
to teach philosophy at the school in lieu of paying tuition for his children. Duddy
agreed.
Religion had long
been a sensitive topic between Duddy and his sister. The CMRIs, Duddy said,
discourage its members from discussing religion with outsiders, as “you’d be
exposing yourself to danger. Hence, I wouldn’t talk religion with my sister
unless she brought it up.”
Ultimately, she
did. “She finally asked me, ‘You’re traditional, so why don’t you agree with
us?’” he recalled.
Duddy gave his
reasons why the sacraments as celebrated since Vatican II were indeed valid,
and that the popes of the past 50 years were legitimate. “I’d give her some
answers, and she’d go away without saying anything,” he said. “But, she’d come
back later with more questions.”
In time, Mother
Kathryn Joseph brought other sisters of the CMRI community to speak with him.
So many sisters began coming—Duddy recalled more than 20—that the group
began meeting privately in a house where Duddy would give classes in
sacramental theology.
The key, Duddy said, was convincing them that the New
Mass was valid: “That was the key that kept them brainwashed.”
When Father Puskorius
found out about the classes, he was “irate,” Duddy recalled. “Father said I
betrayed him, and that I was a liar because I said I wouldn’t share my views on
the Church that contrasted with their beliefs.”
Duddy countered
that he had only promised not to do so in the classroom, not in private
conversations initiated by his sister and the other nuns.
Duddy hoped to
begin a dialogue with Bishop Pivarunas, but ultimately was unsuccessful.
There are many
small, independent sedevantist groups like the CMRIs, Duddy said. To his credit
Bishop Pivarunas, unlike leaders of many other groups, has not declared himself
to be pope (although Schuckardt is alleged to have).
The groups are not in any
way unified, Duddy continued, and fight amongst themselves. He said,
“They’re like Protestant churches.”
Breaking the
spell
Duddy’s classes,
the example of the Missionaries of Charity, and interactions the CMRI sisters
had with “mainstream” Catholic clergy “broke the spell of lies the sisters were
living under,” said Duddy.
In 2006, some of the nuns went to the then-Bishop
of Spokane, William Skylstad, seeking to be regularized.
The bishop
recalled meeting some of the CMRI nuns previously at the Spokane airport, when they
had coincidentally been taking the same flight.
“It was cordial, but distant,
considering their status in the Church,” the bishop said of that meeting.
Bishop Skylstad was
pleased to be meeting the nuns again under better circumstances. Over the
course of several meetings, he suggested they stay with the CMRIs a while
longer, in an effort to change the minds and hearts of the other sisters.
They
did, but not for long.
Some of the CMRI
nuns contacted Bishop Pivarunas to ask him to do something about the division
in their community.
Pivarunas, in turn, wrote each of the dissident sisters
telling them to keep quiet about anti-sedevacantist positions or leave the
community within two weeks. Some of the nuns agreed to remain silent—15 did
not. In June 2007, the 15 sisters left.
“We were laughing
in relief,” Sister Mary Eucharista recalled. “We knew we needed to go. But it
wasn’t easy. We had to leave the other sisters and a home we loved; a place
many of us had been part of since we were kids. In the minds of the sisters we
had left behind, we had become part of the ‘enemy’ Church.”
Those choosing to
stay behind included Mary Eucharista’s older sister. Many in the CMRI community
were upset at Pivarunas’ harshness in dealing with the sisters, so the bishop
spent some time in Spokane doing damage control, said Duddy.
“The bishop
insisted that it was the way it had to be,” Duddy said. “And they really
returned to their hard-core sedevacantism, preaching it from the pulpit and at
St. Michael’s Academy. They took a major step back to preserve their power.”
With the blessing
of Bishop Skylstad, the expelled sisters formed a religious community, the Sisters of Mary, Mother
of the Church (SMMC). Mother Kathryn Joseph became the new community’s
superior. Their chief apostolates include teaching, working at Immaculate Heart
Retreat Center in Spokane, and parish work.
Some of the SMMC sisters distribute
Communion to patients at Spokane’s Sacred Heart Hospital (another sign of their
rebirth, as in the CMRI community, only the priest is allowed to touch the
Host).
Nine sisters and
two novices are currently part of the SMMC community, as some of the original
15 have left for other communities.
The sisters are currently working with the
current bishop of Spokane, Bishop Blaise Cupich, to purchase a property for a
motherhouse.
Bishop Skylstad
is pleased with the outcome of the SMMCs’ journey. “It is with profound
gratitude and appreciation of their courage that we received them into full
communion with the Church,” he said. “Our prayers for unity were answered. It
shows that with the power of the Holy Spirit, miracles can happen. It’s
wonderful.”
The CMRIs have
not been open to communication or dialogue with the SMMCs. Mother Kathryn
Joseph believes fear and a conviction that the SMMCs are apostates are the
reasons for the separation. “I hope they will one day be able to share in
the joy I have,” she said. “It is a delight and a great comfort to live
religious life in the Church.”
Duddy observed
that his sister and the other sisters who left are happier in their new
circumstances. “I think they’re pleased to be out of the ‘cultish’ mentality,”
he said. “They realize that the Church may have its problems, but it’s still
here.”
“Our new community is energized and filled with the Holy Spirit,” Sister Mary Eucharista said. “I pray daily that my former community may hear the call of the Holy Spirit, and see all he has given us.”