The “unintentional parody” of the Last Supper at last week’s inauguration of the 2024 Olympics in Paris angered Christians and Catholics.
The outrage sparked after the ceremony featured a scene reminiscent of da Vinci’s painting with a transgender model, drag queens, and a man in a very revealing outfit. Organizers now claim the unintentional parody of the Last Supper was meant to represent Dionysus and raise awareness of the absurdity of violence among humans.
In Greek mythology, Dionysus is the god of wine, vegetation, fertility, festivity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theater. According to myth, Dionysus was born twice.
He was born once from his mother, a mortal woman called Semele, and a second time from Zeus’s thigh after Semele’s death. Paris 2024 organizers claim this is what the now infamous Last Supper scene at the Olympics was supposed to represent.
Online criticism from conservatives and religious groups forced an apology from Olympics organizers
The anger that resulted from this scene was evident in online discourse. Prominent figures of sports, politics, and technology slammed the scene for being woke and offensive towards Christians and Catholics.
Consequently, the pressure generated by this discourse prompted a press conference from the Paris 2024 organizers.
During said press conference, spokesperson Anne Descamps stated, “Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. The inauguration tried to celebrate community and tolerance.”
Moreover, she added, “We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense, we are really sorry.”
In addition to Descamps’s comments, the director of the Last Supper scene at the Olympics, Thomas Jolly, said that religious criticism was not his intention.
In his defense, Jolly insisted, “We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everyone, as simple as that.”
Paris Olympics Last Supper scene “morally void,” said leaders
One of the delegated French bishops at the Olympics, Monsignor Emmanuel Gobilliard, stated that “French athletes had trouble sleeping over the controversy.”
However, the outrage was not limited to the French Church. Indeed, the highest-ranking Catholic in Malta, Charles Scicluna, contacted France’s ambassador to Malta to complain about the scene at the Olympics.
Furthermore, criticism from European churches was echoed by right-wing politicians in Europe. For instance, Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega Nord party in Italy, said the segment was squalid, and that “opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians around the world was a really bad start, dear French.”
Additionally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the ceremony was an example of “the moral void of the West.”
