Canada celebrated its 150th anniversary over the weekend of July 27th. Part of the celebration featured giant robots put on by La Machine, a street theatre company that constructs unusual objects for performances in public spaces. The company built two robots, a mechanical dragon-horse hybrid and a giant mechanical spider, that spent the celebratory weekend walking around Ottawa and engaging in dramatic battles. 

As part of the performance, La Machine installed the spider on the top of Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica. The Cathedral, led by archbishop Terrence Prendergast, had agreed to feature Kumo, the mechanical spider, when approached by the theatre company, seeing it as a way to cooperate with the city and be a part of the celebration. The Cathedral also sits opposite the National Art Gallery and the famous Louise Bourgeois bronze arachnid, "Maman," making it the perfect location to feature La Machine's very own arachnid. 

While Prendergast and Cathedral staff thought people would be happy to see the church involved in Ottawa's celebrations, many Catholics were outraged to see the religious building crawled on by one of the events monsters and took to the archbishop's Facebook page to object. In addition, the receptionist at the archdiocese reported the office received numerous phone calls, letters and e-mails, from Catholics expressing their outrage.

In response, Prendergast issued an apology stating "I say to those who were shocked that I understand that this would have been upsetting for them and that I regret that a well-intentioned effort to cooperate in a celebration was anything but that for them.”