From ‘Pious Association’ to ‘Heretical Movement’: What lies behind the fall of the Armée de Marie? 

Séminaire midi animé par Catherine Foisy, Professeure Département de sciences des religions | UQAM et Chercheure régulière au CRIDAQ  | Local W-3235, Université du Québec à Montréal et Zoom (sur demande: foisy.catherine@uqam.ca) 

Résumé
The Armée de Marie, a movement founded in 1971 by the Canadian mystic Marie-Paule Giguère within the Quebec religious tradition and based on devotion, personal edification and service, quickly obtained the status of a ‘pious association’ from the Canadian Church. Over the years, following the inspiration of the foundress, the group moved closer and closer to Marian prophetism and took its contents to the extreme. Having lost the favour of an increasingly concerned Church, the parable of the Armée de Marie ends with a resounding excommunication. However, are the movement’s theological gambits alone enough to explain its dramatic end? Why did groups like the Focolare Movement and the Neocatechumenal Way, both highly innovative and both founded by a woman, have a better fate in the same period? Against the backdrop of a Quebec society grappling with a vigorous process of secularisation, what weight did the complex balances in the Catholic Church between opposing forces (clergy and laity, magisterium and charisma, tradition and innovation, centre and periphery, men and women) have in the Armée‘s condemnation? This is the main question this paper will deal with during the course of this lecture.

Un texte de M. Equizi est accessible dès maintenant et nous en recommandons la lecture avant la conférence, afin de favoriser une discussion riche, nous vous demandons d’en prendre connaissance. Merci de vous inscrire auprès de Catherine Foisy, foisy.catherine@uqam.ca, spécialement pour celles et ceux qui souhaiteraient suivre le séminaire en ligne et afin de recevoir le papier du conférencier. 

Conférencier
Massimo Equizi is a PhD student in Humanities at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He holds a BA in History (University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’) and a MA in Anthropology (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia). His research interests concern contemporary Catholicism with a particular focus on the different souls of popular devotion. He is currently analysing some Marian cults linked to recent apparitions and mystical revelations.