Paris 2024: Mockery of the Last Supper at the Olympic Games sparks reaction from Catholics and others

A parody of the Last Supper, led by drag queens, during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games has sparked a wave of indignant reactions.

In a statement Published this Saturday, July 27, the French Episcopal Conference criticized the “scenes of scorn and mockery against Christianity, which we deeply deplore.”

“We are grateful to people of other religious faiths who have expressed their solidarity. This morning, we think of all Christians on all continents who have been hurt by the outrage and provocation of some scenes,” the bishops of France noted.

Javier Tebas Medrano, president of La Liga, as Spain’s professional soccer league is known, referred to blasphemy as something “unacceptable, disrespectful, infamous! Using the image of the Last Supper at the Paris Olympic Games is an insult to those of us who are Christians. Where is the respect for religious beliefs?”

One of the best-known prelates in the Catholic Church in the United States and Bishop of Winona Rochester in Minnesota, Bishop Robert Barron, encouraged Catholics to “make your voices heard” in response to what he called a “rude mockery of the Last Supper.”

In a post on

Fray Nelson Medina, a well-known Colombian Dominican priest who carries out a vast apostolate on social networks, pointed out “that he will not see a single scene from the Olympic Games. How disgusting what they have done, mocking the Lord Jesus Christ and his ultimate gift of love. And they are cowards: they would not mess with Muhammad. #OlympicGamesParis2024”.

For his part, and in reparation for the blasphemy, the Bishop of Madison, Bishop Donald Hying, immediately encouraged Catholics to “fast and pray, renew our devotion to the Eucharist, to the Sacred Heart and to the Virgin Mary.”

“May Jesus be adored and loved in every tabernacle throughout the world,” the prelate noted in a post onin which he thanked God for the Eucharist, the Last Supper, and his “love for us.”

The Spanish priest Juan Manuel Góngorawho on X is followed by more than 76 thousand people, reacted to the mockery with a quote from JRR Tolkien, the famous Catholic writer of the saga of The Lord of the rings: “Evil cannot create anything new, only corrupt or ruin what the forces of good have invented or built.”

The Bishop of Brownsville (Texas), Mons. Daniel Floresalso reacted quickly and noted: “My vocabulary is not large enough to find a word to name what I feel in the pit of my stomach,” adding that Christians “deserve more respect.”

Bishop Flores’ sentiments were also echoed by some non-Christians. “Even as a Jew, I am enraged by this outrageous insult to Jesus and Christianity,” said the Dr. Eli Davidwho also regretted that the inauguration ceremony has shown that Europe is “dying culturally.”

He P. Francisco Javier Bronchalo, from the Spanish diocese of Getafe and author of several books, lamented that “today Paris 2024 has started laughing in the faces of millions of people. They ridicule the sacred to do harm. It is clear that the great defender that stands up to evil is the Catholic Church. That is why the attacks are increasingly diabolical.”

The richest man in the world, Elon Muskalso said that the show was “tremendously disrespectful to Christians.”

American Catholic Senator Marco Rubio He also responded to what he considered a “freak show” (freak show), quoting the biblical passage Jude 1, 18: “In the last times there will be scoffers who will go after their own ungodly passions.”

The French member of the European Parliament, Marion Maréchal, granddaughter of the famous right-wing leader Jean Marie Le-Pen, headed in X “to all Christians who have felt insulted by this drag queen parody of the Last Supper: know that it is not France that is speaking” at the inauguration “but a left-wing minority ready for any provocation.”