In the summer of 1924 at the Olympic Games in Paris, Eric Liddell, a Scottish sprinter and devout Christian, announced that he would not run on a Sunday, since he believed doing so would amount to a violation of the Sabbath. The organizers of the games allowed him to run in a different event that would not violate Liddel’s Christian convictions. One hundred years later, the officials at the Paris Olympics decided that the opening ceremonies of the games should include a gross parody of the Last Supper, with drag queens striking provocative poses representing Jesus and his apostles. One can remark the declension from 1924 to 2024 only with dismay.
After appalled Christians all over the world—including a high-ranking Vatican official, numerous members of the church in America, and the entire French bishops’ conference—called them out, the organizers furiously backpedaled and engaged in some rather pathetic gaslighting of their critics. The Olympic committee claimed on social media that the whole display was in fact about the Greek god Dionysus. But many of the participants in the tableau admitted that it was indeed meant as an alternative Last Supper, and the central character even proudly declared that she was “Olympic Jesus.” Moreover, the event’s resemblance to Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper is perfectly obvious to anyone with two eyes and a brain.
In its formal apology, the committee, still sheltering under the mantle of “Dionysus,” said the whole purpose of the display was to encourage “tolerance.” And everyone is tolerated—except those pesky 2.6 billion Christians around the world who hold the Last Supper sacred and who can, apparently, be ridiculed with impunity. Everyone is welcome except, evidently, those who don’t accept the reigning ideology.
I admit that I smiled at the assertion that the tableau achieved its “ambition” of “community.” Given that the exercise resulted in a firestorm of protest around the world, one wonders what planet the Olympics’ organizers are living on. And if the opening ceremony was so successful in producing concord, why did they take video of it down from all of their social media platforms? The non-apology concluded with just the sort of condescending sentiments that we have come to expect: “If people have taken any offense, we’re of course really sorry.” In other words, if you were small-minded and unintelligent enough to be put off by this subtle cultural display, we regret your hurt feelings. No, Christians were offended because the demonstration was offensive and to suggest otherwise is patronizing.
How can we not read this latest outburst of disdain in light of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ decision last summer to honor the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of drag queens who regularly perform anti-religious acts of desecration? The principal lesson that Christians should take from these gestures is that the people behind them know who their enemy is. The ideology that is now dominant in the West and that has infiltrated most of the institutions of Western society—education, business, government, entertainment—is secularist, materialist, and morally relativist. What stands most powerfully against this philosophy are the Christian churches, especially, I daresay, the Catholic Church.

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Catholics affirm the existence of God, which means we think there is a transcendent purpose to human life; we affirm a stable human nature, which means we don’t think sex is a social construct; and we hold to objective moral values, which means we don’t think living the good life is simply a matter of personal choice. Critics of Christianity know this, and that’s why they deride us. They’re telling us very clearly who they are and whom they’re against—and we should believe them.
A final word of warning about the castigation of Christian faith. So many of the values that we in the West hold dear—respect for the dignity of the person, limited government, equality, human rights, and perhaps especially, reverence for the poor and victimized—come not from Enlightenment rationalism, but from Christianity. What will happen to our society if, having denigrated Christianity into marginalization or oblivion, no one any longer hears the story of the Prodigal Son or the Good Samaritan, attends to the Sermon on the Mount, or gazes with awe on the cross of Jesus? We would be living, not in some utopia, but in a blasted cultural space.
I would like to end on a positive note. Just before the opening of the Olympics, a gathering took place in Indianapolis, Indiana, as part of a Eucharistic revival in the United States. Fifty thousand people filled Lucas Oil Stadium to celebrate Jesus’ real presence in the Blessed Sacrament. I will never forget the moment when a raucous stadium of mostly young people suddenly fell into silent adoration when the Eucharist was carried into the arena.
Religious faith remains strong, despite its detractors. In varied and sundry ways, they are trying to mock and bully us into irrelevance. I say to my fellow Christians: Speak up, resist, and get in their way.
Bishop Robert Barron leads the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minn., and is founder of the ministerial organization Word on Fire. Follow: @BishopBarron
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
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