The bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, who is one of the most Catholic media voices, called out the theatrical opening of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris for mocking Christianity and the Last Supper, and asked if the Olympic organizers would consider insulting the Muslim faith.
“A question I would pose–we all know the answer to it: ‘Would they ever have dared mock Islam in a similar way?’” asked Bishop Robert E. Barron, who is also the founder of the “Word on Fire” ministry, in an X-post.
Barron said the enemies of Christianity are putting Christians on notice that the struggle is being fought right now:
“We should believe them,” he said.
“They’re telling us who they are,” he said. “We should believe them, but furthermore, we Christians–we Catholics–should not be sheepish. We should resist. We should make our voices heard.”
The opening ceremony for every Olympiad is always an opportunity for the host country to present its culture to a worldwide audience that could be in the billions.
Friday’s spectacular marked the first time that the opening ceremony was not contained in the main Olympic stadium. Instead, the organizers also staged performances all over Paris by Beyonce, Celine Dion, and Lady Gaga, complemented by gymnasts on rooftops and a mysterious masked man character in 18th-century costume running through the city with the Olympic torch.
Throughout the city, the French erected statues honoring the 10 golden heroines of French history: Olympe de Gouges, Alice Milliat, Gisèle Halimi, Simone de Beauvoir, Paulette Nardal, Jeanne Barret, Louise Michel, Christine de Pizan, Alice Guy and Simone Veil.
Somehow, St. Joan of Arc, did not make the cut.
There was also a singing and dancing drag queen segment, which seemed connected to the drag staging of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Last Supper” painting. This staging culminated in the drag personification of the Greek god of wine, feasting, and frivolity, Dionysus.
One easy interpretation of that juxtaposition is that the organizers were mocking the commemoration of Jesus Christ introducing to the Apostles the transfiguration of the bread and wine at the table into the body and blood of Christ, which Catholics celebration in the Mass, with a rival deity with alternative take on wine.
“Would they ever have dreamed of mocking in this gross, public way a scene from the Koran?” asked the bishop, consecrated in 2015 after Pope Francis named him an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the titular bishop of Macriana in Mauretania.
Barron said there was no need to actually pose the question or wait for an answer.
“We all know the answer to that. I think folks, what’s interesting here is this deeply secularist, postmodern society knows who its enemy is,” he said.
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Barron said he had just arrived home from the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, and he turned on the TV to watch the opening ceremonies as he would any other time.
“Just a few days ago, I was in Indianapolis for the marvelous celebration of the Eucharistic Congress, 50,000 Catholics coming together to worship the Lord and celebrate the real presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,” he said. “I come home, and I love the Olympics.”
The Chicago native said he was also looking forward to the ceremony because he studied there.
“It’s in Paris, France, a city I love–I spent three years as a doctoral student there,” he said.
“What do I see? But this gross mockery of the Last Supper, and I won’t describe it any further, just go online. It’s gone viral. You can see it,” he said.
“France felt, evidently, as it’s trying to put its best cultural foot forward, the right thing to do is to mock this very central moment in Christianity where Jesus and his Last Supper gives his body and blood in anticipation of the Cross,” he said.
At least one French politician, Marion Marechal, who represents France in the European Parliament X-posted her own disgust:
“To all the Christians of the world who are watching the #Paris2024 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,” she said.
Barron, the former rector of Mundelein Seminary at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake, his alma mater, said he found it particularly disturbing that the French ridiculed Christianity because that faith tradition has been central to French culture.
“What is presented, though, is this gross sort of flippant mockery,” Barron said.
“France, which used to be called the eldest daughter of the Church–Paris, that gave us, Thomas Aquinas taught there, and Vincent DePaul was there. King Louis IX–St. Louis,” he said.
“France, whose culture–and I mean the honoring of the individual of human rights and freedom is grounded very much in Christianity–felt the right thing to do was to mock the Christian faith.”
