The bruhaha about the opening ceremony in Paris offers an instructive insight into the minds of fundamentalist Christians. It was everywhere. On friends’ feeds:
Post A
Post B
It was on public figures’ streams:
Post C
Post D
It was on Polish streams:
Post E
Even the parish K attends got into the action:
And those public figures not posting about it were commenting to the media.
Robert Barron, a Catholic bishop with a large online platform, said,
France felt evidently as it’s trying to put its best cultural foot forward, that the right thing to do is to mock this very central moment in Christianity where Jesus at his last supper gives his body and blood in anticipation of the cross.
It’s presented through this gross or flippant mockery. France which used to be called the oldest daughter of the church. […]
France has sent Catholic visionaries all over the world. France whose culture and I mean the honouring of the individual, in human rights and of freedom is grounded very much in Christianity. […]
What’s interesting here is this deeply secularist, post-modern society knows who its enemy is, they’re naming them, and we should believe them, because this is who they are.
But furthermore we Christians, Catholics, should not be sheepish. We should resist, we should make our voices heard.’
Daily Mail
Trust me, Mr. Barron, your voices are heard. Some of us are just a little bemused at the ignorance behind it all.
What makes more sense? That the organizers would choose to satirize a Renaissance painting or portray something distinctly Greek, specifically the Feast of Dyonisus?
Whatever their intent, the
[o]rganizers of the Paris Olympics have apologized for any offense caused by a skit in the games’ opening ceremony Friday that featured drag stars in what many viewers saw as a parody of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous “The Last Supper” masterpiece, a similarity that drew the ire of Catholic leaders and conservatives like Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr.
Forbes
They also pointed out that
[r]ecreations of “Last Supper” are not uncommon and have not often been met with the same kind of backlash as what followed the Olympic opening ceremony. Popular TV shows like “Lost,” “House,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Sopranos” and “The Simpsons,” among others, have posed their actors in similar photos, and art with celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Freddie Mercury and Bill Murray portraying Jesus are readily available online.
Forbes
Heck, the MAGA people who are so upset were decidedly less upset about a different recreation of the painting:
At its heart, though, I can’t help but see this as an example of Christian fundamentalist ignorance and hypocrisy. They are all “America first!” in everything else, but here they’re willing to refuse to support American athletes who had nothing to do with the planning of the opening ceremony because in their ignorance they’ve confused the Feast of Dyonisus and a Renaissance painting which isn’t even part of any religious canon at all. Davinci’s painting was itself a derivative and unrealistic interpretation.