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Police Seek Motive Behind Graffiti at Sect Home
Senseless Attack or Sinister Act?
Vandals spray-painted an odd combination of symbols at the home of a small religious sect in rural Marengo this weekend, leaving its members, their neighbors and police to wonder if it was the work of pranksters or someone more sinister.
It’s unclear why symbols for Satan and the Ku Klux Klan and other signs that the group is not welcome were painted on a statue of the Virgin Mary and around the Fraternite of Notre Dame‘s property off Harmony Hill Road.
“It’s hard to put a label on it,” said McHenry County Sheriff’s detective David Mullen. “Some acts of vandalism have a strong motivator, and with other acts there’s no reason for it.”
On Monday, the order’s nuns and priests still had not removed the graffiti they found painted on just about everything but the farmhouse that serves as their home. They found the graffiti on New Year’s Day after they returned from a prayer vigil at their church in Chicago.
“We prayed all night, and when we came back we found all the statues covered in black paint and green paint with very bad words,” Sister Marie Valerie said. “It’s more than disgusting.”
The nature of the vandalism shocked even long-time residents, including several who said they’d never seen anything like it in the farmland on the fringe of the western suburbs.
“We’ve had problems with kids vandalizing mailboxes, but never anything like this,” said Joyce Kawa, who lives nearby. “My son-in- law went and stopped by and the things they wrote … he wouldn’t even tell me.”
The Fraternite of Notre Dame was formed in France about 28 years ago and 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 various charitable activities in Chicago, New York, Haiti, Mongolia and parts of Africa. It operates a patisserie in the Algonquin Commons Mall to help fund its missions.
In June, a divided McHenry County Board signed off on the group’s plans to build a church, convent, print shop and a bakery on the 65- acre site. All that stands at this point is the farmhouse.
Many neighbors, such as Rob Cisneros, fiercely opposed the move and said the sect’s businesses would change the rustic setting of the area.
Now, Cisneros said, he and others are embarrassed and angry that a neighbor’s property was targeted.
“A lot of us opposed them being here – it was a zoning and property issue,” Cisneros said. “But we moved on and the only purpose now is to be good neighbors. And now this.”
A canvass of the area Sunday and Monday turned up scant leads on who pulled off the vandalism, in part because of its random pattern, Mullen said.
The odd pairing of “KKK” and “666″ were painted on the Virgin Mary and other statues, on rocks and on markers throughout the property.
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