Indigenous women lead protest calling for removal of cross on Mount-Royal

A group of Indigenous women staged a protest on Mount-Royal Wednesday against Pope Francis' historic visit to Canada.

The group, known as the Mohawk Mothers, said an apology for residential schools is an insult and what they want instead is action.

That cross is a symbol of the oppression, they say, that the Catholic Church inflicted upon Indigenous communities through residential schools and other means. The group said removing it would be one concrete way to acknowledge that.

On Wednesday, Pope Francis landed in Quebec City as part of his six-day tour in Canada to apologize for the harm done by the Catholic Church in Canada's residential school system.

The cross on Mount-Royal has been there for nearly a century. It commemorates the date on Jan. 6, 1643, when Paul de Chomedey, also known as the sieur de Maisonneuve, kept his promise to carry a wooden cross to the summit of Mount-Royal if the young colony of the Ville-Marie fort survived.

The cross stands 30 metres high and when lit at night it can be seen from kilometres away.

It is usually lit in white, but it can be purple to mark the death and election of a new Pope.

But for the Mohawk mothers and others gathered in protest, the cross is a glaring reminder of all the terrible things the Catholic Church has done to Indigenous people.

Kwetiio, one of the Mohawk Mothers, is calling for the removal of the cross on Mount-Royal. (CTV News)

They say the Pope's visit is a waste of time and money and want concrete actions of reparations to Indigenous people for all the land that was taken from them.

"I would like that cross to be taken down. If you just look behind you, all of you, if you were to take a look around all the amounts of crosses that you see," said Kwetiio, one of the Mohawk Mothers.

"There's a symbol of that power that comes over us. And that's just cruel."

The Mohawk mothers have a slew of demands. One of them would be to consult Indigenous groups on development projects on Mount-Royal, for example, with the New Vic development that McGill University has planned for the Old Royal Victoria Hospital grounds.

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If you are a former residential school survivor in distress, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419

Additional mental-health support and resources for Indigenous people are available here.