Paris Olympics Officials Apologize For ‘Last Supper’ Parody At Opening Ceremony: ‘There Was Never An Intention To Show Disrespect To Any Religious Group’

The organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics are apologizing after angering a lot of Catholics and other Christian groups with their “Last Supper” parody skit, which was shown during the opening ceremony on Friday evening (July 26).

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It’s reported that a kitsch tableau parodied Leonardo Da Vinci ‘s iconic painting, which recreates the biblical scene of Jesus Christ and His Apostles sharing one last meal before His crucifixion. In the sketch, there were drag queens a transgender model featured, along with a child and a naked singer made up as the Greek God of Wine Dionysus.

On Saturday (July 27) and Sunday (July 28), the organizers of the 2024 Paris Olympics released an apology over the apparent “Last Supper” parody. During a news conference, Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps stated, “Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. [The opening ceremony] tried to celebrate community tolerance. We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense, we are really sorry.”

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Artistic director Thomas Jolly also attempted to clear the air and draw attention away from “The Last Supper” references by claiming it wasn’t his intention to draw a comparison.

Jolly told news outlets, “Our idea was inclusion. Naturally, when we want to include everyone and not exclude anyone questions are raised. Our subject was not to be subversive. We never wanted to be subversive. We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everybody, simple as that. In France, we have artistic freedom. We are lucky in France to live in a free country.”

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Despite the Olympics misdelivering their intentions and apologizing, Christians around the world continued to condemn the incident, including a Catholic Church in France who called the segment a “mockery of Christianity.” Additionally, Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini called the scene “insulting” and “sleazy,” adding, “Opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians across the world was a really bad start.”

Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet also tried to minimize the criticism and said, “We imagined a ceremony to show our values and our principles so we gave a very committed message. The idea was to really trigger a reflection. We wanted to have a message as strong as possible. Naturally, we had to take into account the international community. Having said that – it is a French ceremony for the French Games – so we trusted our artistic director. We have freedom of expression in France and we wanted to protect it.”

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