PARIS (LifeSiteNews) — Gerhard Cardinal Müller has joined numerous voices criticizing the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, which saw a pro-LGBT mockery of the Last Supper, calling the display a “sacrilegious and vulgar representation” that offended “millions of believers around the world.”
“With that sacrilegious and vulgar representation it has managed in one fell swoop to sully the noble face of the Olympics and to offend millions of believers around the world.” So commented Müller in reference to the now infamous opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, which shocked viewers across the globe on Friday.
A caricature show, designed by the homosexual Thomas Jolly, saw drag queens and dancers perform a mockery of the Last Supper, particularly appearing to faux-imitate Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper painting.
Footage and screenshots of the ceremony have continued to go viral on social media sites over the weekend, although the Olympic organizing committee have fought back by moving against user accounts under the guise of copyright laws over the footage.
“France has missed yet another opportunity to show that it is not suffering from the usual ideological secularism,” Cardinal Müller told Il Messaggero.
The German cardinal, residing in Rome after having led the Vatican’s doctrinal office between 2012 and 2017, ruled out the possibility that the performance was an accident.
“In the homeland of the French Revolution nothing happens by chance,” he rebuffed, pointing to the historic Catholic persecution in France:
And in this regard I would like to recall the persecutions against Catholics during the Terror. Something that one does not like to talk about at all. Even the most uninformed historian knows well that in the events of the present precise roots and archetypes can be identified.
Müller attested that “France lacks respect for religions. All religions,” and said that the Olympic ceremony was an assault to religions generally, not just Catholicism: “Freedom of religion has been affected, since millions of faithful have been offended.”
Welcoming the criticism of the French Catholic bishops to the opening ceremony, the cardinal also called on “leaders of other religions” to “make themselves heard.”
“This episode is not only a low blow to Christianity, since the show glorified the woke ideology that goes against the natural moral law,” he stated. “If there is a lack of respect for the figure of Jesus Christ, it seems to me to be self-evident that there is an underlying vulnus with far wider reflections.”
Tech billionaire Elon Musk warned following the Paris ceremony that “[u]nless there is more bravery to stand up for what is fair and right, Christianity will perish.” This assessment Cardinal Müller appeared to agree with, highlighting that “the principle of religious freedom has been struck, which, by the way, is the foundation of the rational order of our societies.”
As many have already pointed out, the decision to target Catholicism rather than other creeds is notable. Müller, making his commentary more specific, opined that “such a thing would never have been allowed to be done against the Prophet Muhammad to avoid the risk of possible acts of violence or terrorism. I only hope that President Macron (who has been silent so far) will decide to make a statement distancing himself from what happened.”
However, the German cardinal downplayed his hopes of the Catholic Church receiving any formal apologies. Though France has been titled the “Eldest Daughter of the Church,” advancing secularism and anti-Catholic rhetoric has swept through the nation and especially found residence in the political classes.
“We Catholics naturally expect an apology,” said Müller, while adding, “however, given the air in Europe, I don’t think anything will happen. Europe itself, as indeed Pope Francis has pointed out on several occasions, has lost its course.”
“The gender ideology now introduced everywhere will lead to the disruption of the natural order of things. It is a very dangerous slope,” the prelate warned.
Nature made two genders, male and female, and not 40. And Western society, if it endorses the dynamics of this totalitarian ideology, will collapse in on itself.
In a subsequent statement issued to InfoVaticana, Müller expanded on his comments, roundly denouncing the Olympic ceremony and the accompanying “secularism” as “nothing more than a cover for the brutal violation of the human right to religious freedom and conscience.”
“The mockery of the Last Supper by spiritually uprooted and mentally disturbed actors, their instigators and sponsors was an act of spiritual terrorism that turned against their authors,” he wrote on the Spanish site.
The cardinal has been an increasingly vocal critic of gender ideology of late. Speaking to this correspondent in a wide-ranging interview in Rome this March, Cardinal Müller warned about a mindset within the Church that seeks to appease the LGBT movement.
He described Fiducia Supplicans – which argues for “blessing” homosexual “couples” – as an attempt by some in the Church to show that “we are not against this worldwide movement of LGBT and we must make a certain concession that we will not be so attacked by them as a counterpart.”
However, he is not alone in the episcopate in voicing his consternation at the Paris Olympic ceremony. The French bishops’ conference issued a swift criticism of the event, and numerous U.S. bishops have also issued their own, more robust protestations.
Vatican official Archbishop Charles Scicluna protested with his local French ambassador, and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson stated that “[t]he war on our faith and traditional values knows no bounds today.”