(LifeSiteNews) — Bishops from across the globe have called upon the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in an open letter to “repudiate” the “intentionally hateful mockery” of the Last Supper during the 2024 Olympics ceremony and apologize for it “to all people of faith.”
As of Friday, Aug. 2, three cardinals and 24 bishops from nearly every continent signed the letter, by which they committed to “a day of prayer and fasting in reparation for this blasphemy.”
“With shock, the world watched as the Summer Olympics in Paris opened with a grotesque and blasphemous depiction of the Last Supper,” the prelates wrote. “It is hard to understand how the faith of over 2 billion people can be so casually and intentionally blasphemed.”
“We, Catholic bishops from around the world, on behalf of Christians everywhere, demand that the Olympic Committee repudiate this blasphemous action and apologize to all people of faith,” the letter continues.
While a majority of the signatories are from the U.S., including Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, Archbishop Emeritus Charles Chaput, OFM Cap, of Philadelphia, and Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, bishops from Nigeria, Lebanon, England, France, and Argentina have also signed the letter, as well as Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan.
Signing cardinals include Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke; Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, OFM; and Cardinal Berhaneyesus Demerew Souraphiel, CM.
The 2024 pre-Olympics ceremony featuring drag queens parodying Leonardo da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper sparked an outcry around the world, especially from Christians, but also from Muslims like Andrew Tate and secular figures like Elon Musk.
Thomas Jolly, the ceremony’s homosexual director, claimed after international outrage that the blasphemous ceremony was not meant to imitate the Last Supper but rather pagan gods. However, the woman in the center of the blasphemous display, Barbara Butch, admitted that she was imitating Jesus Christ, having posted on her Instagram account that she depicted “Olympic Jesus.”
Another post from Butch’s Instagram account reads, “Oh yes! Oh yes! A New Gay Testament,” along with a picture of the blasphemous and obscene ceremony next to an image of the Last Supper.
Bishop Robert Barron of Diocese of Rochester, Minnesota, who decried the display as a “gross, flippant mockery of the Christian faith,” has rejected the quasi-apology offered by the IOC, in which they stated they were “sorry” if “anyone was offended by certain scenes.”
Bishop Barron called the half-hearted “apology” “a masterpiece of woke duplicity” in a video posted to X on July 29.
“Christians were offended because it was offensive and it was intended to be offensive,” Barron said. “So please don’t patronize us with this condescending remark about, well, if you had any, you know, bad feelings, we’re awfully sorry about that.”
“A real apology would be something like: This was a mistake. It should never have been done, and we’re sorry for it,” he said, adding, “I don’t think Christians should be mollified; I think we should keep raising our voices.”
In addition to offering a day of prayer and fasting, the letter’s signatory prelates “will offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in which Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection are made present to us … ”