The first light show I attended was outside Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. The mausoleum of Hadrian, papal fortress, and latter-day museum complex was in 2013 the stage for the Italian launch of PlayStation 4. Sony projected a five-minute multimedia experience onto the Tiber-facing façade to mark the occasion. It was a three-dimensional projection that told a story: a siege with dragons, a ruined castle, and, finally, the monument transformed into a spaceship. The music followed the plot, beginning with somber orchestral tones and progressing to a dubstep extravaganza. When the din became overwhelming, the projectors flashed an advertisement for PlayStation. The show seemed out of place, and, honestly, a little disrespectful. I can only imagine what Hadrian would have made of it.
These kinds of shows were new in Europe at the time and basically unheard of in North America. Now they are commonplace. Some have even moved indoors. Such is the case in Montréal, whose Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal is home to the AURA Experience, a twice-daily show that advertises itself as “an immersive light experience” where the viewer is plunged “into the timeless beauty of the Basilica, acting as both muse and canvas.” To translate into plain English, it’s a tourist trap.
Montréal may seem like a surprising venue for the AURA Experience. It is the largest city in Québec, historically the most Catholic region in Canada. Of course, the city is now effectively post-Christian, as is the rest of the country. But the odd after-effects of the Church’s sudden, steep decline are evident everywhere. AURA is only one of them. The show is sponsored by the basilica itself and performed by the entertainment group Moment Factory. The theory is that it gets people through the church doors, exposes them to ecclesiastical beauty, and—who knows?—perhaps inspires enough curiosity to keep them coming back for something more.
Or at least that’s what I have heard. In any case, AURA does some seriously good business. When the show was refreshed and relaunched in 2022 after the pandemic, the Globe and Mail estimated that more than seven hundred fifteen thousand people had attended it since its initial launch in 2017. That number is surely now in the millions. With hundreds of shows and tickets starting at about twenty dollars, AURA is nothing if not beneficial to the basilica’s bottom line.
During my visit this fall, the church was as full or fuller than it would have been for a Christmas Mass. Visitors are encouraged to arrive a few minutes early to view the backlit Stations of the Cross and the chapels and altars that populate the side aisles. After exploring the church or grabbing a good seat, they can wait in the pews facing the mood-lit main altar as ambient music plays in the background, teasing the main event. All sorts of people show up. My crowd was multi-ethnic and multicultural; at one point, I noticed two young Muslim women looking for a seat closer to the front.
Meanwhile, all natural light from the outside world is blocked out. For the show, the only illumination is generated artificially by one hundred forty specially installed lights. The show itself is divided into three parts and lasts about twenty-five minutes, although there isn’t any narration to denote when each act begins. Act I is titled “The Birth of Light,” Act II is “The Obstacles,” and Act III is “The Open Sky.” In general, it is easy to follow the show’s progression. AURA combines music, lights, images, and, of course, lasers (in addition to the lights, the show uses twenty-one projectors, twenty mirrors, and four lasers). A few scenes are memorable, such as in the third act when an image is projected onto the ceiling to create the illusion of, well, the open sky. In another interesting moment, set to synth music, the main altar is turned red and lasers are projected onto the walls and ceilings, an effect eerily reminiscent of the Netflix series Stranger Things.
AURA is one of the most impressive uses of advanced light projection that I have ever seen. I’m not surprised it has been popular for so long. Still, about halfway through the show, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of it was. In the case of the Castel Sant’Angelo show—crass as it may have been—everyone watching understood that we were there to witness the release of a new gaming console. AURA doesn’t have an obvious message or even a subtle one. It seems to have no message at all.
It is strange to contemplate the installation of a permanent light show in an active minor basilica. And it is uncomfortable to consider that the show is completely devoid of reference to religion. The altars, pillars, and paintings were lit up—and it was interesting to see them this way—but the show-runners made no attempt to connect, even loosely, their canvas to the images displayed on it. The basilica was built explicitly for worship and evangelization, but no one seemed to notice or care. Anyone who attends the AURA Experience who is not already catechized will leave with no greater understanding of Christianity, even though the building’s immense architectural beauty is quite loud about it.
It would be one thing if AURA were just another performance in a decommissioned church. But it is advertised on the basilica’s website: It is at least nominally a Catholic event. So the choice to sidestep the Faith entirely is perplexing. Instead of emphasizing the building’s architectural elements in the context of the Church, AURA opts for confusingly vague gestures. What are “The Obstacles”? What is the point of “The Open Sky”? Even the “The Birth of Light” misses an obvious opportunity to emphasize the altar’s crucifix and tabernacle, the light shining in the darkness, as Saint John puts it.
The secularization of a Christian society often affects its people—and the Church itself—in unexpected ways. In Québec, this is an old and ongoing story. The province was settled by French colonists in the seventeenth century. Montréal was founded in 1642 under the auspices of the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal, a group of French Catholics who wanted to establish an explicitly Catholic colony. It was originally named Ville Marie (“City of Mary”). In time, the Société could not adapt to the realities of the New World and transferred responsibility for its colonial project to the Sulpician order, whose monastery is Montréal’s second-oldest building. After the French and Indian War, the English took control of Québec. It has been English and Canadian much longer than it was ever French. But unlike Maryland, a British attempt at Catholic colonization in what would become the United States, Québec and Montréal never quite lost their Catholic identity. Indeed, the first Protestant church in Montréal was not opened until 1792, one hundred fifty years after the city’s establishment.
For the next one hundred seventy years, Québec and the Church were practically indistinguishable from each other. The Church’s influence over Québecois politics and everyday life was enormous. The Church ran the public school and health-care systems of the province; by one measure, there were upwards of forty-seven thousand nuns in Québec alone. Between 1960 and 1962, it lost control of education and health care. Female religious orders declined precipitously, losing about forty percent of their membership by 1970. By then, the Church and the society it molded were destroyed. As in many other countries, secularization happened gradually, then suddenly.
The physical churches are still there, but many have either fallen into disuse or, in the case of the basilica, repurposed themselves. Yet some still hold on. Just minutes from the basilica is one such church: Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. This church is fairly simple, technically a chapel, and more of a local parish than an international destination. It is one of Montréal’s oldest churches, and its simplicity is also its strength. A mariners’ shrine, the church has model boats of all kinds, from sailboats to iron ore freighters, hung from the ceiling to note devotions. In a side chapel to the left of the altar lies Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys, the founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame in Montréal, who helped establish the chapel where she is now buried. Confessionals near the entrance are still in regular use, as evidenced by confession times posted in French on the door. And besides basic electricity, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours is mercifully lacking in fancy light displays.
The first light show I attended was outside Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. The mausoleum of Hadrian, papal fortress, and latter-day museum complex was in 2013 the stage for the Italian launch of PlayStation 4. Sony projected a five-minute multimedia experience onto the Tiber-facing façade to mark the occasion. It was a three-dimensional projection that told a story: a siege with dragons, a ruined castle, and, finally, the monument transformed into a spaceship. The music followed the plot, beginning with somber orchestral tones and progressing to a dubstep extravaganza. When the din became overwhelming, the projectors flashed an advertisement for PlayStation. The show seemed out of place, and, honestly, a little disrespectful. I can only imagine what Hadrian would have made of it.
These kinds of shows were new in Europe at the time and basically unheard of in North America. Now they are commonplace. Some have even moved indoors. Such is the case in Montréal, whose Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal is home to the AURA Experience, a twice-daily show that advertises itself as “an immersive light experience” where the viewer is plunged “into the timeless beauty of the Basilica, acting as both muse and canvas.” To translate into plain English, it’s a tourist trap.
Montréal may seem like a surprising venue for the AURA Experience. It is the largest city in Québec, historically the most Catholic region in Canada. Of course, the city is now effectively post-Christian, as is the rest of the country. But the odd after-effects of the Church’s sudden, steep decline are evident everywhere. AURA is only one of them. The show is sponsored by the basilica itself and performed by the entertainment group Moment Factory. The theory is that it gets people through the church doors, exposes them to ecclesiastical beauty, and—who knows?—perhaps inspires enough curiosity to keep them coming back for something more.
Or at least that’s what I have heard. In any case, AURA does some seriously good business. When the show was refreshed and relaunched in 2022 after the pandemic, the Globe and Mail estimated that more than seven hundred fifteen thousand people had attended it since its initial launch in 2017. That number is surely now in the millions. With hundreds of shows and tickets starting at about twenty dollars, AURA is nothing if not beneficial to the basilica’s bottom line.
During my visit this fall, the church was as full or fuller than it would have been for a Christmas Mass. Visitors are encouraged to arrive a few minutes early to view the backlit Stations of the Cross and the chapels and altars that populate the side aisles. After exploring the church or grabbing a good seat, they can wait in the pews facing the mood-lit main altar as ambient music plays in the background, teasing the main event. All sorts of people show up. My crowd was multi-ethnic and multicultural; at one point, I noticed two young Muslim women looking for a seat closer to the front.
Meanwhile, all natural light from the outside world is blocked out. For the show, the only illumination is generated artificially by one hundred forty specially installed lights. The show itself is divided into three parts and lasts about twenty-five minutes, although there isn’t any narration to denote when each act begins. Act I is titled “The Birth of Light,” Act II is “The Obstacles,” and Act III is “The Open Sky.” In general, it is easy to follow the show’s progression. AURA combines music, lights, images, and, of course, lasers (in addition to the lights, the show uses twenty-one projectors, twenty mirrors, and four lasers). A few scenes are memorable, such as in the third act when an image is projected onto the ceiling to create the illusion of, well, the open sky. In another interesting moment, set to synth music, the main altar is turned red and lasers are projected onto the walls and ceilings, an effect eerily reminiscent of the Netflix series Stranger Things.
AURA is one of the most impressive uses of advanced light projection that I have ever seen. I’m not surprised it has been popular for so long. Still, about halfway through the show, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point of it was. In the case of the Castel Sant’Angelo show—crass as it may have been—everyone watching understood that we were there to witness the release of a new gaming console. AURA doesn’t have an obvious message or even a subtle one. It seems to have no message at all.
It is strange to contemplate the installation of a permanent light show in an active minor basilica. And it is uncomfortable to consider that the show is completely devoid of reference to religion. The altars, pillars, and paintings were lit up—and it was interesting to see them this way—but the show-runners made no attempt to connect, even loosely, their canvas to the images displayed on it. The basilica was built explicitly for worship and evangelization, but no one seemed to notice or care. Anyone who attends the AURA Experience who is not already catechized will leave with no greater understanding of Christianity, even though the building’s immense architectural beauty is quite loud about it.
It would be one thing if AURA were just another performance in a decommissioned church. But it is advertised on the basilica’s website: It is at least nominally a Catholic event. So the choice to sidestep the Faith entirely is perplexing. Instead of emphasizing the building’s architectural elements in the context of the Church, AURA opts for confusingly vague gestures. What are “The Obstacles”? What is the point of “The Open Sky”? Even the “The Birth of Light” misses an obvious opportunity to emphasize the altar’s crucifix and tabernacle, the light shining in the darkness, as Saint John puts it.
The secularization of a Christian society often affects its people—and the Church itself—in unexpected ways. In Québec, this is an old and ongoing story. The province was settled by French colonists in the seventeenth century. Montréal was founded in 1642 under the auspices of the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal, a group of French Catholics who wanted to establish an explicitly Catholic colony. It was originally named Ville Marie (“City of Mary”). In time, the Société could not adapt to the realities of the New World and transferred responsibility for its colonial project to the Sulpician order, whose monastery is Montréal’s second-oldest building. After the French and Indian War, the English took control of Québec. It has been English and Canadian much longer than it was ever French. But unlike Maryland, a British attempt at Catholic colonization in what would become the United States, Québec and Montréal never quite lost their Catholic identity. Indeed, the first Protestant church in Montréal was not opened until 1792, one hundred fifty years after the city’s establishment.
For the next one hundred seventy years, Québec and the Church were practically indistinguishable from each other. The Church’s influence over Québecois politics and everyday life was enormous. The Church ran the public school and health-care systems of the province; by one measure, there were upwards of forty-seven thousand nuns in Québec alone. Between 1960 and 1962, it lost control of education and health care. Female religious orders declined precipitously, losing about forty percent of their membership by 1970. By then, the Church and the society it molded were destroyed. As in many other countries, secularization happened gradually, then suddenly.
The physical churches are still there, but many have either fallen into disuse or, in the case of the basilica, repurposed themselves. Yet some still hold on. Just minutes from the basilica is one such church: Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours. This church is fairly simple, technically a chapel, and more of a local parish than an international destination. It is one of Montréal’s oldest churches, and its simplicity is also its strength. A mariners’ shrine, the church has model boats of all kinds, from sailboats to iron ore freighters, hung from the ceiling to note devotions. In a side chapel to the left of the altar lies Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys, the founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame in Montréal, who helped establish the chapel where she is now buried. Confessionals near the entrance are still in regular use, as evidenced by confession times posted in French on the door. And besides basic electricity, Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours is mercifully lacking in fancy light displays.
