Religious sect at odds over graffiti removal

Members of a small religious sect in rural Marengo got into a dispute Tuesday with officials from a Cook County sheriff’s graffiti-removal group.

The argument began after the graffiti group showed up to remove negative symbols spray-painted on a statue of the Virgin Mary and elsewhere around the Fraternite of Notre Dame’s property off Harmony Hill Road.

When the order’s nuns and priests saw the removal taking place, they first asked the group to stop, for fear insurance representatives couldn’t photograph the damage.

When the group continued, the sect members then called the McHenry County sheriff’s office, Sister Marie Valerie said.

“Nobody gave them permission,” Valerie said. “They have to respect what we tell them to do. They’re on private property.”

McHenry County sheriff’s officials declined to comment.

A spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff’s Police said the argument resulted from a mix-up in communication.

The group members thought they were responding to a removal request from sect members themselves, Cook County sheriff’s spokesman Bill Cunningham said.

As it turns out, Cunningham said, the department had only received a call from a concerned resident.

“Apparently due to some sort of communication breakdown, the members of the work crew that were out this morning thought we had received a request directly from the monastery,” Cunningham said. “It was just a mix-up.”

Cunningham added that the graffiti crew rarely travels outside of Cook County. But in special circumstances, the group removes graffiti for other suburban municipalities and nonprofit groups.

“It rarely happens,” he said, “but on occasion, we cross county lines.”

McHenry County sheriff’s police also said Tuesday there was no update on the graffiti investigation.

Sect members found the graffiti, which included symbols of Satan and the Ku Klux Klan, after they returned from a New Year’s Day prayer vigil at their Chicago church.

The Fraternite of Notre Dame was formed in France roughly 28 years ago. The group considers itself Catholic but is not affiliated with the Vatican. Its leader, the Bishop Jean Marie Roger Kozik, says he founded the group at the request of the Virgin Mary.

The order operates charitable activities in Chicago, New York, Haiti, Mongolia and parts of Africa.

In June, a divided McHenry County board — in a vote fiercely opposed by some neighbors — agreed to the group’s plans to build a church, convent, print shop and bakery on their 65-acre site.

To date only a farmhouse, which serves as their home, sits on the property.

“We are very scared now,” Valerie said of the vandalism. “In Chicago, we live in a bad neighborhood. We feel much safer there than we do in Marengo. It’s supposed to be the other way.”

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