Bishop of Paisley John Keenan English and Scottish bishops have joined the outrage against the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, in which a controversial parody of the Last Supper, featuring drag queens, took place.
Bishop of Paisley John Keenan dismissed the event as embodying a “secular Europe” which is currently “disfiguring its Christian roots”.
“I was shocked by footage from the Paris Olympic Games Opening Ceremony in which a mockery of the Last Supper was enacted,” Bishop Keenan said. “These central mysteries of our Christian faith were ridiculed by an ideology that thinks it can become the new religion of a secular Europe on the back of disfiguring its Christian roots.”
The section in question closely resembled the biblical scene of Jesus Christ and his apostles at the last supper. It included drag queens, a transgender model and a naked singer who played the role of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine.
Anne Deschamps, a spokesman for the Paris 2024 Olympics, said there was “never any intention to show disrespect to any religious group”, whilst artistic director Thomas Jolly told reporters that he wished to represent “diversity”. “We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that,” he said.
However, Bishop Keenan dismissed the organiser’s explanations, and outlined the problems with the controversial content.
“The Sacred Meal the Lord shared with His disciples on the eve of His Passion and Death was the pivotal moment of human history,” he said, urging Catholics to participate in “fasting and prayer…for the conversion of those who participated”.
Bishop Keenan also pointed out how the Mass remains a key element in the secular cultural story-despite its rejection of faith.
“In choosing the Holy Mass as the heart of its global ceremony, this new ideology paradoxically manifested how the Eucharist is always the reference point of every human endeavour, whether to build up or tear down, to create or overthrow,” he said.
Responding to the ceremony, Archbishop of Southwark John Wilson, like many Catholics, changed his social media profile picture to the classic image of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper. He called the image “a precious portrayal of the Lord Jesus giving himself to us in the Holy Eucharist”.
UK Christian groups Voice for Justice UK and She leads UK blasted the parody as “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”.