A Catholic shrine that is one of Montreal’s most recognizable landmarks is attracting a new kind of pilgrim.
Since last summer, St. Joseph’s Oratory has been struggling to deal with a steady stream of urban explorers—trespassers, often young, looking to scale the cross that sits atop the church’s massive dome.
Adventurers and thrill-seekers have been surreptitiously climbing the dome and other historic structures around Montreal for years. But Céline Barbeau, spokesperson for the oratory, said now people are breaking in almost every weekend, likely drawn to the site by social media posts from other climbers.
“It’s one of the iconic monuments of Montreal,” she said. “The oratory is the highest point in the city. It’s a heritage building that everyone knows. So to climb this dome … and even manage to go up the cross, I think it’s just an act of daring.”
St. Joseph’s Oratory, which sits on the slope of Mount Royal, is a popular destination for pilgrims, some of whom climb the 99 wooden steps from the street to the church on their knees. A first chapel was built on the site in 1904. The basilica was begun 20 years later, but construction of the dome, one of the largest in the world, didn’t start until 1937. The cross, which reaches a height of 97 metres above the floor of the basilica, was consecrated in 1941.
Last weekend, a group of teenagers broke into the oratory and made their way into the organ loft. Barbeau said it was the first time trespassers had taken that route through the church, and they damaged several doors and stole a security camera as they went. The organ was undamaged, she said.
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The incident prompted oratory staff to speak out publicly. Barbeau said the teens could easily have damaged the organ, which she said is “part of the DNA” of the church. “So we thought maybe it’s time to make people aware of the danger that this represents,” she said. “It seems that they don’t realize they are putting their life in danger.”
Barbeau said a fall from the cross would likely be fatal. She added that trespassers are committing a “criminal act,” and said the church has had to repair the doors several times already. “It’s time to stop this, and stop taking unnecessary risks,” she said.
Montreal police say they arrested a 14-year-old and two 15-year-olds at the church on Saturday evening, and are looking for three others who got away. Barbeau said the oratory has security guards on-site 24 hours a day, as well as security cameras, but because the area is so large, it’s not always possible to catch trespassers.
Photos and videos uploaded to social media show several successful ascents of the cross in recent months. A video posted to Instagram last week shows three people clinging to the cross, one filming with a selfie stick, in the middle of a snowstorm.
A former urban explorer using the name Felixshots, who climbed St. Joseph’s Oratory in 2019, told The Canadian Press by email that the oratory is a popular destination in part because it’s a unique ascent, quite different from standard flat rooftops. He declined to give his real name because urban exploration often entails trespassing on private property.
He said the hobby has existed for a long time, but that it’s been degraded in recent years by the rise of social media sites such as Instagram and TikTok. “The explorers of my day had a mindset of ‘Leave nothing but footprints,’” he said. “The vision of the hobby was based on respect for places and other people’s property.”
He said he finds it “unacceptable” that the oratory has been vandalized and said thrill-seekers today are driven by the desire to boost their profile on social media. He said Montreal bridges and the Mount Royal cross are other popular climbing sites in the city, and there’s little surveillance and few consequences for those who take the risk.
“I stopped doing urban exploration when this wave of ‘Ready to do anything for TikTok’ began,” he said. “I lost interest when I saw how the hobby was ruined.”
