What needed to be said about the sacrilegious opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics has been said — with righteous indignation and appropriate anger. Catholics were right to take offense at what is offensive to God and to fiercely denounce it. There is no shortage of biblical precedents to draw upon.
The sacrilege took place within five broader contexts: Satan at work in the world, cultural confusion, corporate influence, ecclesial criticism and preventive preparation.
Satan Returns to France
Satan came back. To be sure, the demons are never wholly absent from this fallen world. But sometimes their work is more easily seen.
On July 26, 2016, 85-year-old Father Jacques Hamel was celebrating morning Mass in Normandy, France, when two young jihadists from ISIS killed him, slitting his throat. In his last moments, Father Hamel recognized exactly who was coming for him, addressing his murderers: “Be gone, Satan!”
Exactly eight years later, on July 26, 2024, Satan came back to France. His instruments this time were not bloodthirsty jihadists, but the artistic directors of the opening ceremonies, who conceived of the sacrilegious drag-queen parody of the Last Supper. Just as God has his willing instruments, so too does Satan.
The deep significance of the sacrilege is that Satan knows what the Last Supper accomplished. There, Jesus instituted the means by which he would remain in the world. Knowing that, Satan rebels. He rebels by killing Father Hamel at the altar; he rebels with mockery before a global audience.
Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper depicts the moment in which Jesus tells the apostles that one of them would betray him. It was at that precise moment that Satan acted at the Last Supper:
“So lying thus, close to the breast of Jesus, [the disciple whom Jesus loved] said to him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ Jesus answered, ‘It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when I have dipped it.’ So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after the morsel, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘What you are going to do, do quickly’” (John 13:25-27).
Da Vinci did not paint Satan at that moment, though he was present. The Olympic mockery reminded us that Satan entered Judas at that moment. Satan knows what it is stake, and so he slinks around the Last Supper, slinks around the altar. His slinking at the Olympics was only more obvious.
The Tranquility of Orgy?
When Olympic officials faced ferocious criticism for the sacrilegious scene, they offered a weak “if-you-were-offended” apology.
But in real time, the official Twitter account explained that the arrival of the Greek god Dionysus at the Last Supper parody “makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.”
This betrays a serious cultural confusion about the philosophical tradition of the West. The Last Supper, with its Passover roots and promise of sacrificial love, is the path to true peace. Dionysus — also called Bacchus — offers a different kind of dinner, full of distraction in drink and revelry. There is no sacrifice. Revelry and debauchery are not paths to fellowship and harmony. Philosophers know that, as do bouncers who break up bar fights. The Olympics forgot that.
The Christian tradition — articulated by St. Augustine — understands that peace is the tranquility of order. Peace requires that right relations prevail, not merely the absence of violence. Paris offered instead the turbulence of the orgy, where there is no attempt to order passions at all.
Corporate Dimension
The Olympics are principally a marketing vehicle for giant corporations, at which athletics is the draw. Everything that takes place is carefully reviewed — with an exacting eye toward licensing and copyright issues. Indeed, those who posted video footage of the opening ceremonies were contacted quickly to take down the copyrighted material.
Many critics made the point that the Olympics would never have mocked something sacred in Islam. True, but the more relevant point is that the Olympics would not have mocked anything regarding Visa, or Toyota or Coca-Cola. Nothing happens without the permission of the corporate paymasters.
Undoubtedly the ceremonies were reviewed to ensure nothing untoward would be said about the commercial giants who pay for it. It thus bears noting that the consultants of the corporate class did not make any objection to the plans to mock Christianity.
Criticism by Churchmen
The American criticism of the ceremonies was led by prominent Churchmen, including two Minnesota prelates, Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston and Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester. They followed the French bishops, who “deeply deplored” what took place. All around the world there were strong denunciations, including from the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople. Neither the Vatican nor Pope Francis made any comment.
The episode demonstrated that wide, deep and timely criticism can be effective. As Catholics began to read John 6 at Sunday Mass, many preachers took their lead from the protesting prelates and addressed from the pulpit the reasons that Eucharistic blasphemy is so serious. It became a powerful teaching moment.
A key lesson is that critical voices need to be on point, quick off the mark and hard-hitting. Bishop Cozzens spoke of “sorrow, shock and righteous anger.”
To be avoided is the more conciliatory approach, couching criticism of the part in the praise of the whole. Bishop Emmanuel Gobilliard, the French bishops’ delegate to the Paris Olympics, wrote to the president of the International Olympic Committee “to tell him how hurt I was by certain segments of the ceremony, but also to encourage him, because I saw so many beautiful things alongside it.”
Such encouragement is a mistake. A chef who includes a bit of rotting meat on a plate ought not to be encouraged because of the tasty vegetables alongside it. The whole thing needs to be sent back and thrown out.
Getting Ready for Notre Dame
There is a pressing reason for strong denunciations now. It is essential preventive preparation. In December, the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris will be reconsecrated after the fire of Holy Week 2019. Pope Francis has been invited to attend.
The French state owns Notre Dame, so it will have great influence on the ceremonies there, as it did on the opening ceremonies. There are certainly some who will be delighted if the dominant image of that day is the Holy Father being wheeled into the cathedral in the company of drag queens. The suitable and fierce response to the Olympics will put Catholic officials in a stronger position to resist any similar mischief in a few months.
The Notre Dame reconsecration now offers a timely remedy to the abomination of the Olympics, a necessary reminder to France of its own deep, Catholic tradition.
