Bishops, other Catholics around world decry ‘derision’ of Christianity at Olympics opening ceremony

PARIS (OSV News) — The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games — a sports festival aimed to unite all nations of the world — created shock and disbelief instead as Catholics around the world felt offended by the parody of the Last Supper, which was part of the opening ceremony.

The four-hour spectacle July 26 started with a parade of athletes down the Seine River, accompanied by music and dancing scenes on top French monuments.

Notre Dame Cathedral, still under construction prior to its Dec. 8 opening, was also featured with an extensive dance segment paying tribute to the construction workers who are rebuilding the icon of Paris following a 2019 fire. Dancers appeared to do aerial work on the scaffolding. The bells of the cathedral rang for the first time since the 2019 fire that nearly destroyed the building.

However as the show progressed, television cameras showed drag queens, one of whom wore a crown, seated at a table. The shape of the crown brought to mind a monstrance.

The scene was immediately interpreted as a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s iconic wall painting in Milan’s Dominican convent of the Last Supper.

The drag queen table scene was later complemented with a nude singer appearing in the middle of a fruit basket, to represent Dionysus, ancient Greece’s God of wine, with the Olympic Games official profile on X, formerly Twitter saying the depiction made us “aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.”

The French bishops issued a statement July 27 deploring the scenes at the opening of the Olympic Games.

While the ceremony was a “marvelous display of beauty and joy, rich in emotion and universally acclaimed,” they said, it “unfortunately included scenes of mockery and derision of Christianity, which we deeply regret.” “We would like to thank the members of other religious denominations who have expressed their solidarity with us,” the French bishops wrote.

“We are thinking of all the Christians on every continent who have been hurt by the outrageousness and provocation of certain scenes. We want them to understand that the Olympic celebration goes far beyond the ideological biases of a few artists,” the bishops stressed.

For the bishops, the values disseminated by sport and Olympism must contribute to the “need for unity and fraternity that our world so desperately needs, while respecting everyone’s convictions, around the sport that brings us together.”

Bishop Emmanuel Gobilliard of Digne, the special representative of the Holy See for the 2024 Paris Olympics, said that he “did not watch the whole opening ceremony,” as he was praying. “It is my priority as a priest,” he told OSV News, adding he saw part of the ceremony and “found it very beautiful with the athletes (and) the Olympic flame.”

He told OSV News however that on the morning following the ceremony, when he saw the images of the controversial scene massively shared on social media, he was “deeply hurt.”

“What shocked me most is that the freedom of spirit and tone claimed by those who set this up shouldn’t be directed against others,” Bishop Gobilliard said. “You can make fun of your own ideas, laugh at yourself, why not. But to mock the faith and religion of others in this way … is very shocking. That was my first reaction.”

He further stressed that the Olympic Games are the last place to create such divisions.

“Why there?” Bishop Gobilliard asked in a conversation with OSV News. “It is contrary to the Olympic Charter, to the dimension of unity that is present in its values, to the idea of bringing everyone together, without political and religious demonstrations. Why exclude believers and Christians? It was the last place to do that. We were to respect the spirit of the Olympic Charter. We are out of it now.”

The Olympic Charter is the codification of the fundamental principles of Olympism, and the rules and bylaws adopted by the International Olympic Committee. One of its opening points says, “The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.”

Bishop Gobilliard said that “all the Christians who watched it suffered this derision,” adding that “many Christian athletes suffered it, the IOC and its president, Thomas Bach. I don’t think he knew about it.”

The parody of the Last Supper was not the only ambiguous symbol at the opening ceremony. What also stirred controversy was a horsewoman dressed in armor, perched on a metal horse and galloping down the Seine with the Olympic flag — a scene in which some recognized St. Joan of Arc, the holy warrior who fought the English in the 15th century. But according to the organizers, it represented Sequana, the Celtic divinity who inhabited the Seine, and a symbol of resistance. Another controversial scene depicted a singer impersonating the decapitated body of Queen Marie Antoinette.

One week after “we all united around Our Eucharistic Lord” at the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, the da Vinci masterpiece “was depicted in heinous fashion, leaving us in such shock, sorrow and righteous anger that words cannot describe it,” said Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, chairman of the board of the National Eucharistic Congress Inc.

“We believe that the Last Supper is united with the death of Christ on the Cross and, together with the Resurrection, these events are all one in the Paschal Mystery,” he said in a July 27 statement. “This passover, which begins at the Last Supper, is the most sacred moment in the life of Jesus.”

He called the faithful “to greater prayer and fasting in reparation for this sin,” and urged them in discussing the Last Supper depiction to do so “with love and charity, but also with firmness.”

Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, went to social media July 27 to express his outrage over what he saw at the opening ceremony. He said after coming back home from the National Eucharistic Congress, in the city he said he loves — Paris — he saw “this gross mockery of the Last Supper.”

Bishop Barron said that France, called the eldest daughter of the church, and Paris, the city of saints, “felt evidently … the right thing to do is to mock this very central moment in Christianity where Jesus in his Last Supper gives his body and blood in anticipation of the cross.”

“Would they ever dare mock Islam in a similar way?” Bishop Barron asked, saying, “We all know the answer to that.” Bishop Barron stressed that in this “deeply secularist, post-modern society,” Christians should “resist” and “make our voices heard.”

Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison, Wisconsin, encouraged in a post on X that “In reparation for the blasphemy in Paris, let’s fast and pray, renew our devotion to the Eucharist, the Sacred Heart and the Virgin Mary.”

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, posted on X July 27 that his “vocabulary is not varied enough to find a word for the feeling in the pit of my stomach.”

He said he hasn’t “watched the Olympics in decades” and that “the agendas just use the athletes; they deserve more respect. So do people of Christian Faith.”

Politicians were also disgusted by the scene, with Catholic French member of European Parliament Marion Maréchale going on X to say: “To all the Christians of the world who are watching” the Paris ceremony and “felt insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper, know that it is not France that is speaking but a left-wing minority ready for any provocation.”

United Kingdom’s Christian groups Voice for Justice U.K. and She leads U.K. united to call for an immediate apology “outraged at Drag queen parody of the Last Supper,” they said in a July 27 statement.

“This is not acceptable. Yet again, the word ‘inclusive’ is used to justify behavior that is overtly exclusive. Such mockery is a deliberate attack on the person of Jesus Christ and a direct challenge to the faith that underpins, and lies at the heart of, Western society,” the joint statement said.

One scene of the ceremony, however, drew unanimous praise: the surprise concert by Céline Dion. Overcoming her illness, stiff person syndrome, she paid tribute to the French singer Edith Piaf, who died in 1963, by performing her “Hymne à l’amour” from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower.

“It was magnificent,” Bishop Gobilliard said. As he spoke to OSV News July 27, he was on his way to “Club France,” the headquarters of all French athletes in the northeast of Paris.

“We are now going to live the Olympic Games with enthusiasm despite all this!” he said, referring once again to the controversial scene. It “could have been a beautiful evening of unity, fraternity and communion between us,” the bishop said, adding that one “scene spoiled it all.”

Paris skies were illuminated by the Olympic cauldron that made a first flight at the Paris Games July 26. It is attached to a balloon and will fly more than 197 feet above the Tuileries gardens from sunset each evening until 2 a.m. Organizers say it is the first Olympic flame in history to be lit without the use of fossil fuels.

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Editor’s Note: This story was updated at 6:50 a.m. on July 28, 2024, with additional comments.

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