The Fraternité Notre Dame: From Emergence in Fréchou to Sojourn in Chicago

Abstract

Abstract The Fraternité Notre Dame is a traditionalist Catholic Marian movement founded in 1977 by Bishop Jean Marie Kozik, né Roger Kozik. Kozik received monthly visions, primarily of the Virgin Mary, and established the Fraternité as a Marian devotional movement in Fréchou, southern France. This article analyzes and contextualizes the history of the Fraternité Notre Dame and its founder Bishop Jean Marie, showing how Jean Marie and his movement responded as religious entrepreneurs, innovating in response to the growing tension between the Fraternites and their religious-cultural context, which culminated in their choice to leave France and reestablish themselves in Chicago. The article analyzes the content of the visions, which both reflected this disconnect as well as spurred it onwards. The visions are contextualized within postconciliar Catholicism and the conservative backlash to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and reflect both a specific French Catholic context and a global apocalyptic vision of a threatened Catholic Church. Finally, the article considers the group’s institutionalization in Chicago as the culmination of the friction between the Fraternité Notre Dame and its cultural and religious origin in Catholic France.