Catholic Bishops Condemn Anti-Christian Olympics Display: ‘Make Our Voices Heard’

Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota shared his thoughts on the anti-Christian display at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

The opening ceremony — which featured drag queens and transgender individuals performing a mockery of the last supper — has generated serious controversy online. In addition to the anti-Christian hatred, the ceremony featured scantly dressed drag queens performing sexualized dances, a naked man painted in blue, and a talking severed head.

On Friday evening, Bishop Barron reacted to the display and urged Christians to stand up for their faith.

“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, at his last supper, gives his body and blood in anticipation of the cross. And so what’s presented though is this gross sort of flippant mockery,” the faith leader said in a video statement.

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“France, which used to be called the eldest daughter of the church, Paris that gave us Thomas Aquinas taught there, and Vincent de Paul was there, King Louis IX, St. Louis, France that sent Catholic missionaries all over the world. 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.”

The Bishop went on to note that anti-Christian actors wouldn’t dare to mock Islam in a similar fashion. “Would they ever have dreamed of mocking in this gross, public way a scene from the Quran. As I say, we all know the answer to that,” he said.

“I think, folks, what’s interesting here is 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.”

The anti-Christian mockery has been condemned by Christian leaders around the world, including those in France.

In a statement released Saturday, a group of French bishops expressed outrage over “scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity, which we deeply deplore.”

“We thank the members of other religious denominations who have expressed their solidarity,” the statement continued. “This morning, we think of all Christians on all continents who have been hurt by the outrage and provocation of certain scenes.”

In an X post, Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta expressed his “distress and great disappointment at the insult to us Christians during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics when a group of drag artists parodied the Last Supper of Jesus.”