ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 31, 2024 / 17:32 pm (CNA).
The drag-queen-led parody of the Last Supper featured during the opening ceremonies of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games sparked outrage around the world and has led C Spire, a U.S. mobile phone and internet company, to make the decision to pull all its advertising from the Olympics.
“We were shocked by the mockery of the Last Supper during the opening ceremonies of the Paris Olympics. C Spire will be pulling our advertising from the Olympics,” the Mississippi-based company announced in a post on X.
Commenting on the move, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said on X: “I am proud to see the private sector in Mississippi step up and put their foot down. God will not be mocked. C Spire drew a common-sense, appropriate line.”
More than 390,000 signatures demand a formal apology
In addition, more than 390,000 signatures have been collected in two campaigns — one by the CitizenGo platform, with more than 250,000, and another by the Christian Lawyers Foundation in Spain, with almost 140,000 — to request a formal apology from the organizers of the Olympic Games for the parody of the Last Supper.
The archbishop of Malta and deputy secretary of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Charles Scicluna, also said he has written to the French ambassador in Malta to express the “distress and disappointment of many Christians at the gratuitous insult during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics” and encouraged others to do the same.
“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,” said Anne Descamps, spokeswoman for Paris 2024, at a July 28 press conference, according to Reuters.
An opportunity for evangelization and forgiveness
The bishop of Córdoba in Spain, Demetrio Fernández, pointed out in his July 29 homily that with the parody of the Last Supper and with it the Eucharist, “they are trying to offend Christians, Jesus who has left us in this sacrament the essence of his life.”
“These blasphemies are very significant, but we have to show the capacity of Jesus Christ and his Church to forgive,” the prelate noted.
“Furthermore, this becomes an opportunity for evangelization that no one else can offer; only Christians are capable of forgiving even when they know the pain that this offense causes,” the Spanish bishop emphasized.
“The forgiveness of Jesus Christ for each one of us is greater than our offenses and the forgiveness of Christians is capable of being conveyed even when they feel deeply wounded,” Fernandez emphasized.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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I’m STILL waiting for the Pope to say something about this. Surely enough time has elapsed for him to know about it.
Other news – the eminent Anne Descamps has emerged as the early favorite for the coveted title ‘liar of the decade’.
Address, email address, telephone number of C Spire?
We read: “These blasphemies are very significant, but we have to show the capacity of Jesus Christ and his Church to forgive.” Yes, to forgiveness, but as a possible footnote (better than the notorious open-door footnote to irregular stuff, found in Chapter Eight of Amoris Laetitia and embraced by a synodal cardinal from Malta).
So, here, the president of the International Olympics Committee, Thomas Bach, is German….Which might remind us of what another German, the lay theologian Josef Pieper, had to say about a superficial/graffiti sort of forgiveness—versus the real Jesus Christ and His more fostering (and shall we say truly dialoguing?) “readiness” to forgive…
Two points plus a summary:
FIRST: “Christ drove the money-changers from the temple with a whip, and [only hours after the Last Supper!] when the most patient of men stood before the high priest and was struck in the face by a servant, he did NOT [italics] turn the other cheek, but answered: ‘If there was harm in what I said, tell us what was harmful in it, but if not, why dost thou strike me?’” (Jn 18:23).
The striking scene of sin on the Seine?
SECOND, then PIEPER quotes AQUINAS in his commentary on St. John’s Gospel:
“Holy Scripture must be understood in the light of what Christ and his saints have actually practiced. Christ did not offer his other cheek, nor Paul either. Thus to interpret the injunction of the Sermon on the Mount [turning the other cheek, Mt 5:39] LITERALLY [italics] is to misunderstand it. This injunction signifies rather the readiness [!] of the soul to bear, IF IT BE NECESSARY [italics], such things and worse, without bitterness against the attacker. This readiness our Lord showed, when he gave up his body to be crucified. That response of the Lord was useful, therefore, for our instruction” (Pieper, “Fortitude and Temperance,” 1954).
SUMMARY, steadfast and upright “readiness,” not invertebrate. Beyond the Olympics context, a “welcoming” Church is one thing, a doormat is quite another….But who am I to judge, or whatever?
I find this rush to forgive premature.
As Bishop Barron has pointed out, there has been no apology.
If I understand the Parable correctly, the Prodigal Father was always ready to forgive but was able to put his readiness into action only when his son repented.