CV NEWS FEED // The Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony this week featured a display of a group of people wearing “drag” costumes appearing to mock the Last Supper, sparking outcry from Catholics and non-Catholic Christians on social media.
Footage from the opening event shows a woman wearing a large crown headpiece standing by the center of a long table, and on both sides of her are people wearing drag costumes. Especially alarming is that a child is present at the table, Collin Rugg pointed out in a July 26 X post.
Per news outlet Deadline: “Recreating a runway to showcase the fashion Paris is known for, a group of drag queens appeared on screen positioned similarly to how Jesus and his Twelve Apostles are depicted in Leonardo da Vinci’s mural painting.”
Catholics, non-Catholic Christians, and some non-Christians on X have spoken out against the display, including a Catholic bishop, who has called for prayers of reparation.
Podcast host Clint Russell posted on his X account on July 26 a video clip of the display, writing:
There are 2.4 billion Christians on earth and apparently the Olympics wanted to declare loudly to all of them, right out of the gate
NOT WELCOME
Dom Lucre posted on his X account more footage from the shocking display, writing: “The dancing blue man featured in the 2024 World Olympic Games opening ceremony is now being placed in the middle of the red carpet to represent being the ‘dish’ in the drag queen recreation of Jesus Last Supper. How could a Catholic nation allow this?”
Marion Maréchal, a member of the European Parliament, posted on X on July 26: “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. #notinmyname”
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, a Catholic, posted a clip of the display on X, and above the video posted a quote from Galatians: “’Be not deceived, God is not mocked. For what things a man shall sow, those also shall he reap. For he that soweth in his flesh, of the flesh also shall reap corruption. But he that soweth in the spirit, of the spirit shall reap life everlasting.’ Galatians 6:7-8″
In a July 26 video post on X, Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, decried the display as a “gross, flippant mockery” of the Last Supper.
He explained that he initially started watching the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. He then saw “this gross mockery of the Last Supper.”
“France felt, evidently, as it is trying to put its best cultural foot forward, 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,” he also said.
Bishop Barron later remarked, “This deeply secularist, post-modern society knows who its enemy is, they’re naming it, and we should believe them. They’re telling us who they are. We should believe them. But furthermore, we Christians, we Catholics should not be sheepish. We should resist. We should make our voices heard.”
Bishop Donald Hying of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, in a post on X, called for fasting and prayers in reparation for the blasphemy.
“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. May Jesus be adored and loved in every tabernacle throughout the world. Thank you Lord for the Eucharist and the Last Supper, your love for us,” he wrote.