By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
PARIS (Worthy News) – Organizers of the Paris Olympics have apologized to Christians who were offended by a scene in the Friday opening ceremony, where drag queens portrayed artist Leonardo da Vinci’s famous mural, The Last Supper. The depiction was seen by critics as a direct affront to over 2 billion Christians worldwide.
The twelve apostles who share his last meal with Jesus Christ before the crucifixion consisted of a group of drag queens, a trans model, and a half-naked singer.
The scene was part of a four-hour spectacle held along the Seine River in the French capital featuring global stars like Celine Dion and Lady Gaga, both of whom are considered icons for the queer community.
Catholics and other Christians saw this as a mockery of their faith. The French Catholic Church said that. “Unfortunately, Christianity is being mocked.”
Some French politicians also said they watched the spectacle in a rainy Paris with horror.
France’s right-wing politician Marion Maréchal said on social media: “To all Christians in the world who watch the opening ceremony and feel insulted by this drag queen parody of The Last Supper: know that it is not France speaking, but a left-wing minority that always wants to provoke.”
Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini called “the insulting” of billions of Christians “a very bad start to the Games.”
RADICAL IMAMS
In the Netherlands, the anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders and ChristianUnion legislator Don Ceder described the scene as inappropriate. “So making fun of Christianity is fine, but if I publish some Mohammed cartoons, the left talks about sacrilege and radical imams issue fatwas,” Wilders stressed.
The ChristianUnion’s Ceder compared the scene with the persecution of Christians. The politician called it “kicking against the most persecuted group of people on earth.”
Christians, Ceder said, “are being murdered, wrongfully imprisoned, raped, kidnapped, hunted, expelled in large parts of the world, just because of their Christian faith.”
Yet the director of the opening ceremony, Thomas Jolly, said that the intention was “never to offend” but that “inclusivity” was pursued. “In France, people are free to love how they want, to love who they want, to believe or not to believe,” Jolly added.
Olympics spokesperson Anne Descamps said, “It was clearly never our intention to offend any religious group. On the contrary, we wanted to celebrate the community’s tolerance.”
Despite questions about the LGBTQ+ ingredients added to The Last Supper, “We think we have achieved that. If people have been offended by it, we are sorry,” Descamps said.
However, drag queen artist Hugo Bardin, better known as drag queen Paloma, condemned the apology. “Apologizing means admitting a mistake, admitting that you have deliberately done something wrong. That is not the case here,” Hu said. “We were there to celebrate the diversity of France. We also belong to France and its diversity.”
DA VINCI
Bardin noted that Da Vinci’s painting is one of the world’s most reproduced works of art. “You see it in music videos, films, photographs, the theater, and opera.
This painting has been used in a religious context and a non-religious context. People are not angry because we recreate it, but because queer people recreated it.”
Most French people claim to be Roman Catholic, but the country also has a tradition of secularism.
Yet, with anger mounting, at least one major advertiser halted its campaign. Telecommunications and technology company C Spire announced on X that it had pulled all of its advertising from the Olympics over the ceremony’s mockery of a painting created to show a biblical moment crucial to the Christian faith.
“We were shocked by the mockery of the Last Supper during the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics,” added the company based in the U.S. state of Mississippi. “C Spire will be pulling our advertising from the Olympics.”
Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, a Republican, praised the company’s decision, saying on social media platform X: “I am proud to see the private sector in Mississippi put their foot down. God will not be mocked. C Spire drew a common-sense, appropriate line.”
Amid the controversy, the International Olympic Committee said a highlight video of the Paris Olympics’ controversial opening ceremony was not removed from the video-sharing YouTube service. It said it was blocked in some regions due to how broadcast rights were organized.
Social media users wondered whether the IOC had deleted the video after the Christian protests. One X user wrote that the opening ceremony “sucked and was filled with blasphemy.”
“There are over 2 billion Christians around the world, and many love to watch the games,” the user wrote. “Why would you make fun and open with that?”
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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